


The Long Way Might Still Lead Home

by Tonko



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic Made Them Do It, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Mutual Pining, Romance, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 11:52:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 58,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15971774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonko/pseuds/Tonko
Summary: Fenris' lyrium makes him vulnerable to the effects of some misplaced Tevinter contraband. Aveline and Donnic deal with the results, and the aftermath.





	The Long Way Might Still Lead Home

**Author's Note:**

> Grand huge immense thank you to [printfogey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/printfogey/profile) for her beta on this thing, considering she's not in the fandom.
> 
> Any remaining errors belong to me (and feel free to leave a comment if you find a typo or something). A few lines of banter from the game proper have been copied or adapted here. Those are Bioware's and not mine.
> 
> Some things to note;  
> -There's discussion of possible infertility and future children in one bit, heads up if that's something you prefer to avoid.  
> -Small presence of/talk of cruelty to animals  
> -Related to above, fic contains cats. Also mabari.  
> -I know Anders can be a divisive character. The POV characters in the fic probably do not share or reflect the opinions of all players. 
> 
> This whole fic happened because I wanted to read this kind of thing after hearing Fenris' banter about playing cards with Donnic and there wasn't much to be had, so here's my take on the scenario.

  
  


The crate was quite damaged. Like many in this overcrowded warehouse it had been thoroughly mishandled and had visibly suffered for it; splintered corners, nails come loose; almost certainly smuggled, and now abandoned, it was something quite dangerous simply lingering on the other end of this foreman's platform.

The markings on it were very recognizable to Fenris, even with his too-new reading skills, but not to Anders, who was approaching it with some curiosity. The Tevinter shipping stamp of origin was not that remarkable as smuggled items went, but the rose-and-bottle device was one Fenris had never expected to see here. It belonged to one of the highly specialized apothecaries for the very wealthy of Minrathous. They made a variety of concoctions for for the purposes of pleasure, or murder, or both, but only one that would be unique enough to smuggle out as contraband. 

Upon that realization, Fenris acted without a second thought, but not fast enough, for Anders was already prying the lid off despite the audible tinkling of shattered glass.

With a grunt of effort from Anders and a creak of protesting planks, the lid came up. A cloud of bluish iridescent dust puffed upward into the fool mage's face as Fenris sprinted towards him. 

"Stop!" he commanded. Already too late for that. "Hawke!! Catch!" he barked, and tackled the mage, ignoring the angry exclamation of surprise to throw Anders over the railing.

The rotted-sweet, acrid scent of the dust blanketed Fenris' senses, making his eyes burn, but he still saw a bewildered Hawke drop her shield and lunge to place herself below Anders, just in time to mostly break his fall. Destrier barked, the mabari sounding distinctly amused, and then he sneezed violently and whined.

"You wretched excuse for a--" Anders' face was already blotched with red as Hawke shifted him to stand upright, then he gasped, choked, coughed and gasped in turns, violently, over and over, a ragged sound like his throat was tearing, wracking his body until he was bent double, clutching his throat. Hawke's eyes widened with rapidly deepening worry and she kept a steadying hand on his back, darting a glance of frightened bewilderment up at Fenris. 

Fenris leaned down over the railing and stared, studying the mage with with narrowed eyes. The choking did not worsen, and his gasps were reassuringly deep. Anders groaned miserably after the fit of wrenching coughs ended, but he was able to stand again. The flush remained across his cheeks and down his throat, but did not deepen to the purple of impending suffocation. What Fenris remembered seeing of the bloated dead who had overdosed, accidentally or "accidentally", would not be repeated here.

"What the--" Aveline had run up the platform's steps at Fenris' shout and he heard her sputter slightly behind him at the astringent, cloying scent that hung in the air by the crate. She sneezed, muttered a curse, sneezed again. Below, Destrier was pawing at his muzzle, snorting unhappily.

"Fenris, did you really have to throw him over the railing," Hawke asked, sounding irked but resigned. Fenris snorted, knowing it would be taken for mage-directed contempt.

"There's a crate of something smashed to bits up here, Hawke," Aveline called out before he could answer, muffled by the kerchief she had pressed over her nose and mouth, but loud enough for Hawke to hear. "Stinks!" she exclaimed. "Is it poison?" she asked Fenris. 

He suppressed a cough himself; it now felt as though the inside of his face had been scraped clean with burning sandpaper. The dry, thick smell clung in his nose and mouth; he wanted to spit, but his mouth had dried out.

"Not exactly," he answered Aveline. "It is from Tevinter. Its contents are intended for the pleasure of wealthy magisters, but it can still be quite hazardous for them to consume." Fenris stared down, watching Hawke's hands tighten where they held Anders' shoulders, still resting there though his breathing seemed to be settling. Hawke peered at him, and put a hand on his cheek. Anders covered it with his for a moment, still breathing hard. 

For his part, because Fenris knew what to look for, he saw that the heated flush on Anders' face was not fading, and his pupils appeared blown, even from where Fenris stood above. Anders licked his lips, and the growing discomfiture on his face confirmed to Fenris that a notable measure of potency remained in the dusty dregs of the evaporated draughts. Whether less or more than a standard dose, he had no way of knowing. "It's--"

"An… er… aphrodisiac draught?" Anders interrupted, voice slightly strangled, making Hawke stare at him incredulously, and then Fenris, her disbelief fading as Anders took slow breaths in and out, visibly trying to control himself. He swallowed noisily, gaze fixed on Hawke, and the naked desire there was not something that Fenris cared to see. He looked away, glared at the crate.

He did not, in fact, want to murder the mage, or see him imprisoned by Templars. He did, in fact, want Hawke to find happiness worthy of her. He simply had never found Anders to be so. Hawke's strange nature that led her to befriend one as adrift and angry as Fenris apparently opened her heart to abominations as well, and Fenris' wariness of that part of Anders had not lessened over the years since they had all first met.

The man was driven, and generous, and felt very deeply, Fenris could not deny that (except aloud). He could be counted upon in battle. But what drove him so single-mindedly, and the volatility inherent in the thing that shared his skull that Fenris felt sure had worsened slowly over the years… He could not help but feel that it boded very ill. 

Hawke's choices were her own, though, and Anders was her lover and their ally. Regardless, he had no desire to see any aroused expression on Anders, _ever_ , no matter who it was directed at.

"Indeed, he is correct," Fenris confirmed Anders' guess, suppressing a sigh and glancing below once again.

Anders gathered himself enough to aim a glare of mortified fury at Fenris, as if this was in any way his fault. Fenris returned an expression of hostile indifference.

"It's meant to be taken extremely sparingly," he said, displaying a smirk for the mage's benefit though he felt no real amusement at the situation. Embarrassment or shame not of one's own making was never deserved. Much. "Too great a dose closes the throat and causes convulsions," he added.

Anders' glare turned to apprehension, and perhaps it would have been a little amusing, if the stuff wasn't still burning in Fenris' own eyes and the back of his throat. Foul concoction.

Anders returned his heated focus to Hawke. "How long do the effects... last?" he asked, voice now deeper and rougher and Fenris had _not_ needed to know how that sounded. And then Anders' fingers slid up Hawke's armored side to her arms, stroking up, down, one hand rising to where fingertips could find her neck, her jaw, places not covered by armour. Hawke caught that hand, stilling it, but not removing it, and looked up at Fenris with the same worried question in her face.

"Most of a day, after a usual dose," Fenris muttered, with distaste. "It will compel intense animal lust for the duration, though that will ease temporarily after a… climax." He eyed Anders another few moments, decided the risk had likely passed. "As he is not choking to death before our eyes, I suspect you have merely to wait for it to run its course. I suggest you take him elsewhere," he concluded sourly.

"Just as well that we're done here," Hawke said, artificially casual and obviously well aware of it. Anders was no longer paying attention to anything but her, and she led him away as he pawed at her some more, leaned in to try and mouth her jaw. She pulled him towards the exit, and the street beyond, Destier at their heels, still snorting and sneezing, and from there--Fenris declined to care where they ended up. 

He turned away at last, back toward Aveline who was regarding the offending crate askance, keeping well back.

The dust seemed to have settled, but his markings stung him still, the lyrium flickering and unsettled, odd with the battle well over. No matter, it would likely ease with some distance from whatever draught dust hung in the air. "This can be disposed of," he told Aveline, nodding at the crate. "It is no risk to non-mages aside from mild irritation." He let himself cough a little, finally, but resisted the urge to rub at his face, where the discomfort had become a unpleasant pressure and a tightness around his eyes. "It can be safely burned."

"Alright," she nodded, and he could see her mentally assigning a patrol to do so. "But is it a risk to you?" she asked, grave concern and a frown on her face as she looked pointedly down, and he followed her gaze to his feet, saw the translucent stain he stood upon that had spread from the crate some time before their arrival, soaking the wood and scattered straw under his bare feet. In his haste to remove Anders from the area he had not noticed.

"I… don't know," he said, stepping hastily back out of the gluey puddle of congealed potion. He was certainly no mage, but it was unlikely the recipe had ever been tested on someone with lyrium etched into their skin, whether topically, inhaled or otherwise. Danarius had never had him ingest the stuff, surely unwilling to risk damage to his pet that he did not both intend and closely control. "I feel…" He shifted uncomfortably, the first pinch of a headache beginning at his temples, settling in and digging at his skull, and that was not all. 

A heightened awareness of his body was starting to ebb and surge with a rhythm, faintly increasing with each heartbeat, the way one's pulse throbbed in a wound, but all over. His markings' itch was worsening. "It appears to be having a… different effect," he allowed. "I--" his jaw clenched against a surge of shooting pains through him, neck to heels down his spine, and spasms twisted tight along his limbs, as though muscles and tendons were suddenly too short. It all eased as abruptly as a gasp, then the headache tightened like a vise, all of it leaving him dizzy and shaking. Aveline was hovering near, uncertain.

"I feel ill," he concluded faintly, and hunched down, bracing himself against the platform railing. Sweat broke out across his body; his clothing and armour chafed raw against his skin. 

"That looked awful," Aveline said. "Blight take these Tevinters," she muttered, which pulled a humorless laugh from him. She hesitated only a moment before she gripped his shoulder and urged him towards the stairs.

Fine idea, that, to get away from here. He stumbled along beside her, the burning of his skin and the throb of everything else shrinking his vision briefly. Another spasm nearly sent him down the steps head first, but Aveline caught him, held him up at her side.

"I'll... return to the mansion," he told her, finding his thoughts sluggish, but still his own. At least whatever was happening to him did not seem to include the specifically intended effects of the draught, for which he managed to feel quite grateful. 

He was too hot, though, far too hot. A pressure was building behind his eyes that did not seem to have a reprieve like the spasms did. He wanted to lie down, somewhere dark, cool. That was all he needed. As long as he could be still and alone, and feel something stable under him, he could wait out whatever pain. 

"I won't leave you there like this," she said, but he did not hear the words. By the time they left the warehouse into the overcast afternoon daylight, the headache stabbed behind his eyes with each step and he was drowning in heat despite the day's autumn chill. It was all he could do to stay upright and follow, never mind see where she was leading him. 

She had drawn his arm over her shoulder, and her hold on him did not falter even when the spasms returned periodically to make his limbs betray him. He only clung, tried to walk, his eyes pinched shut most of the time as the pain dug through his skull. He sensed little beyond it all but the pressure of her armoured side against his and the near, reassuring smell of her under the day's dust and dirt, armour oil and human sweat and faint traces of flowery soap.

It was only when a door that was not the mansion's opened to reveal an out-of-uniform Donnic that Fenris had a slow glimmer of realization that he was not where he had expected to be. He blinked slowly through the headache and didn't understand why Donnic stood before him in shirtsleeves, the faded, well-worn blue a contrast to a guardsman's uniform. Fenris panted and sweated and his limbs deserted him again so that he buckled in Aveline's grip.

Donnic was reaching for him with horrified concern and Fenris found himself shifted from leaning against one strong pair of arms to another, Aveline's explanation too distant for him to care about. "I need to report this and send men over there. I won't be too long," he caught at the end of it, then the door closed.

"A _sight_ you are," Donnic's mutter was quick and worried. 

"The... mansion," Fenris told him, confused. Had Aveline not heard? She had only needed to leave him there. 

"You're at ours." Donnic's voice was gruff, short with concern. "Safer here, with someone to keep watch, hm? There now. I've got you… I'll take this off, shall I?" A touch to the buckle that strapped Fenris' sword to him. He lurched and growled, swatted instinctively out. The blow connected improperly and he managed only to cling, fingers clumsy, to Donnic's large, sturdy forearm, the skin cool against his palm. The scent of Donnic was around him, and overlapped with Aveline's; armour oil, that soap, and what was simply Donnic; human, male and familiar. Fenris' wariness sloughed away, and he grunted assent. He let his hand drop, just stood unsteadily as Donnic's arms surrounded him for a moment. His head swam. He felt dazed and bare when the weight of his weapon was removed from his back. 

He swayed and struggled against it, determined to at least remain upright. His head felt full of twisting knives, it throbbed nauseatingly, lines of fire spread everywhere along the lyrium markings and each heartbeat pushed him painfully outward against his own too-tight skin. The heat rolled over him in unending waves. His mouth was gummy, drying out.

Donnic was talking again, touching his armour with some question. Fenris clawed at the catches. Off, off. Too hot. 

It came away, as did his gauntlets, and allowed him a few moments' relief. Then his muscles tightened like a yanked, tangled cord. He grabbed for a handhold, his fingers finding weak purchase on soft linen and solid arms.

When the spasm eased, Fenris could see his hands had rubbed grime onto the soft blue fabric. Onto Donnic's clean shirt that smelled like soap, like him. Fenris was making it dirty. 

His head sagged to see his feet planted unsteadily on the floor, bits of dried blood and dirt scattered where they had scraped or flaked off, spreading out from where he stood.

He should _not_ be here. Not here.

He tried to let go and would have lost his balance if not for the hands that caught him, and his own fingers caught at his head instead. He pushed his palms against his temples, fingernails raking at his skull, trying to push back against an unbearable spike of pressure that stretched for vast seconds before easing slightly again. 

"Have a care," he heard Donnic murmur gently, fingers sliding between Fenris' nails and his skull, smoothing through his hair.

'I… care," Fenris replied, confused, hands sagging away from his head. He looked up long enough to meet a faint, worried smile on Donnic's broad features. 

"Just as well, so do we," he said.

He guided Fenris down the narrow hall of the very modest Hightown row house that Aveline's position had granted them. It was no mansion, the entire floor plan could nearly fit within one of the wrecked wings that Fenris ignored and were occupied by vermin and the cats that had moved in to feed upon them. The handful of times Fenris had reluctantly come inside this home before, he had felt the differences keenly enough to cut. So many little things that made this house into a place for them--trinkets and books on shelves, a bowl of fruit, a half-played game of chess strewn on a table--while an entire mansion where he stayed was merely… a place. Perhaps a home once--not his--now just a husk, occupied by one man, and the feral cats that hunted the vermin that had lived in the walls.

Right now, his gaze barely rose past the patterned rug under his feet, where his passing left visible filthy prints. 

Just leave, he told himself. He had to get back to a place where no one would know he was there. Find a corner, somewhere. Endure until it passed. 

Yes. He should not be here--"Must go," he forced out between breaths. But he was held. He struggled, abrupt panic at the hands on his arms rising up sour in his throat. "Release me!" 

Donnic halted immediately. 

"We will go, if you wish. But you can stay," Donnic's voice was far away to his ears, it had turned soft, but Fenris heard him, and listened. "Please stay." 

An invitation--a choice. The distress abated some. 

Donnic's grip had gentled until it was barely there, only enough to aid Fenris in keeping upright, and Fenris felt a relief that was laced with a measure of bitterness. He could--should--leave this warm place, Aveline and Donnic's home. He was free to go back to his own dim abode.

If he tried, even as feverish and uncoordinated as he was now, he would be able to pull free of Donnic's hands on him, he was sure of that. 

How far he could get alone was uncertain, but he had a dawning realization of just what Donnic had said. Donnic _would_ take him there if he desired.

And if Donnic did… he would know Fenris was there.

If Donnic took him there, knew he was there... he probably wouldn't leave him, Fenris reasoned dimly, pleading with himself. And if Donnic wouldn't leave, perhaps Fenris could… he might as well… remain here.

The compulsion to remove himself faltered completely, and was overcome by the pain and exhaustion. "Very well," he said, barely above a whisper. He felt Donnic's hold on him grow firm again, felt the gentle tug, and let himself be led.

***

Donnic got little more out of Fenris; no more coherent words and only the minimum of cooperation with walking upright as he finally managed to lead him into the bedroom. Donnic pulled the curtains shut as he maneuvered Fenris towards the bed, reducing the grey daylight to a dim glow through the white-and-orange flowery cloth.

He'd almost _left_. Maker, if Aveline hadn't brought him, if he'd been alone when this came over him… Donnic felt ill at the thought of him staggering back to collapse in that huge empty place. Or worse yet, not making it there at all.

Fenris halted and swayed when they reached the bed, turned when Donnic guided him, sat, and the back of his neck burned against Donnic's palm as he laid him down. He looked terrible, and Donnic felt some guilt for seeing him this way, barely cognizant, his skin flickering intermittently lyrium-bright, face tight with a grimace of pain, eyes only half open and unfocused more often than not. 

It pained Donnic terribly, the sad certainty that the elf would have done his best to hide away, like many a wounded creature did, if he had been able to leave that warehouse under his own power. But... Fenris had stayed here, when Donnic had asked.

He got on with making him as comfortable as he could. Whatever the Tevinter draught had done, the only thing to do now was to get through the side effects. If Fenris found fault with any of this course of action afterwards, Donnic would apologize then and hope he hadn't ended a friendship that he had come to hold rather dearer than Fenris knew, or ever ought to.

He understood, from what Aveline had been able to tell him of the man's past, and what Fenris had shared in brief, rare comments over the years, that he had more than enough reason for his demeanour. Donnic found it astonishing the man had survived so much and still managed to befriend anyone at all.

Not that Fenris' trust came easily. It had been a gradual acclimation to move beyond merely seeing Fenris at the Hanged Man during Varric's card games. Being invited into his lair, as Donnic always thought of the old mansion, had been something of an honour, even if he knew Fenris would have scoffed at the idea.

He'd never have predicted such a thing after his first sight of the dour-looking, strangely tattooed elf who projected danger as easily as he breathed, a man that stalked grimly in the wake of the kindly but implacable force of nature that was Hawke, with a greatsword at his back and hard, wary eyes. The very idea that Donnic would one day be sharing wine over weekly games of Diamondback with him? Sheer impossibility.

And yet, they had sat across from or next to each other enough times at the Hanged Man that Donnic had come to enjoy and then desire his company. He had been intrigued to see the respect Fenris had for Hawke, and knew from Aveline's accounts how he fought like a beast on behalf of his allies--even the ones he didn't personally like. His word was true and likewise his loyalty. Donnic had discovered unexpected humour in the tenor growl of his voice, the wit and often surprising breadth of knowledge for one who had only recently learned to read--much more than Donnic could claim, as a barely schooled washerwoman's boy turned city guard.

And Fenris very much seemed to enjoy Wicked Grace, just like Donnic.

Donnic had made a suggestion without forethought one night, then immediately anticipated outright refusal or even contempt, but instead Fenris had looked taken aback, then cautious. "I do enjoy Diamondback as well, yes. If you care to, we could… meet?"

The word had been a question, as if the whole idea was novel.

Donnic remembered smiling in happy surprise, remembered Fenris bemusedly giving him a brief upward tilt of one corner of his mouth in return. 

He wouldn't exactly say he had been smitten all at once, not the way he'd been with Aveline when she had saved his life during that ambush, but the airy surge in his chest had been more than an eagerness for friendship, even if that was all he could allow himself to express.

And almost every week for going on three years, when they both were free, he and Fenris had found time for a few hours of cards. Dear, lovely Aveline, sore and sulky loser that she was, still did not attend--rarely even joined the weekly Wicked Grace game that Varric hosted, for all their sakes. Rather, Aveline was quite often hauled along on forays with Hawke, most often along with Fenris and the haunted-looking apostate who ran the Darktown clinic, the strange crew heading out to the coast or Sundermount or merely cutting a swathe through a dock gang.

Donnic was aware that Aveline, too, had grown fond of Fenris. Just as he had. 

She'd described to him once how Fenris had been visibly startled to discover her covering his flank during one of their earliest outings after Hawke had adopted him into her little group. He had felled the last bandit in front of him, then turned with his blade raised to find Aveline there. He'd said nothing, but Aveline had recalled to Donnic how Fenris' fighting style had slowly changed from that point, how his stance loosened when an she or Hawke was near, how he went from merely making room for her or Hawke beside him to actively taking advantage of suddenly having one less weak spot; to anticipate and expect, perhaps for the first time, allies and support. And in turn, to come to their aid, and allow them to do the same.

Donnic had never fought alongside Fenris properly, though he did spar with him on occasion, usually if Aveline was away with Hawke and Fenris had remained. It was less true sparring and more being someone who was willing to let Fenris to bat him around with that great blade. The weight and power of the lean body wielding that greatsword, even when Fenris was pulling his strikes--it was daunting and exhilarating in the moment. And reassuring. As much as Aveline and Hawke, and the rest of them, were watching Fenris' back now, Donnic was doubly glad when he knew Fenris had gone along to watch theirs.

Realizing the depth of his own feelings had occurred not while sparring, though. It had come upon him at the end of one of their card games. 

Fenris had been winning that time, Donnic hadn't had a single hope of recovering, somewhat distracted for part of the round by trying to befriend the feral grey tomcat that occasionally visited Fenris' hearth for warmth, to no avail. Now he was clinging to his bluff simply to enjoy the little smile of contentment on Fenris' mouth for as long as possible. Fully distracted by the cards in his hand, Fenris was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, loose and relaxed, unconcerned by anything but the game, and Donnic's poor bluff had evaporated into a fond grin that Fenris was too busy arranging the cards to notice. 

Then when he played his hand it was with a visibly _happy_ measure of smug satisfaction, corners of his mouth curved up and green eyes smiling, and Donnic felt such warmth--how glad he was that Fenris enjoyed their games. 

He'd said nothing to Fenris, how could he? But after a time, it had come up obliquely with Aveline. He couldn't feel correct, hiding it, even as one-sided as such a thing had to be, and over conversations about Hawke's various dangerous errands outside Kirkwall, about whether they had any books Fenris might care to borrow to improve his reading, there'd been circumspect musings about both their appreciation of and growing affection for the man, until he found his feelings echoing back from her, and they had stared at one another in bemused mutual recognition.

There had been nothing to do with this shared knowledge--neither of them had a notion of how to navigate such a thing--Aveline's brief wishful idea of a complicated series of "subtle" notes and gifts had trailed off with a grimace. Donnic still remembered Fenris' remark as he had been caught up in Aveline's tremendously roundabout yet hamfisted method of courting… "It's pathetic. And admirable." To say Fenris was ambivalent about romantic affection seemed an understatement.

The sheer, towering risk--the idea of telling him... to have him end the friendship--was appalling.

So they carried on as before. And it was enough to know he was safe, most days.

He had not been today. 

Donnic finished settling him, took a moment to try and be sure he was comfortable, or at least as much as possible, then left just long enough to fetch all the supplies he could think of.

He first folded a damp cloth over Fenris' eyes, got a little sigh of relief. After a quiet question that got a slight, delayed grunt that Donnic could not honestly be sure was agreement, Donnic gingerly peeled the battle-grimed tunic and leggings off and set them aside. He pulled a sheet over Fenris' middle for modesty's sake, and then he cleaned him. 

His feet, calloused and grimy, were first. Donnic wiped away the foul, rotted-smelling bluish residue that Aveline had said was the cause of this. The odour stung his eyes and nose some, but nothing worse. Fenris sighed, after, seemed to settle a bit, and Donnic carried on to wipe sweat and grime and spattered blood from his overheated body. He'd done similar for Aveline after bad shifts, and she for him. But never had he needed to gingerly smooth a cloth over fiery-hot lines of silver tattooed into skin. The markings burned hotter than the rest of the skin Donnic touched, and Fenris still sweated and intermittently twisted with unpleasant grunts of discomfort, but soon enough he was at least free of the traces of combat.

Donnic maneuvered Fenris properly into the bed, pulling back the quilt and sliding him carefully onto clean linen. If the fever made way for chills, he could be covered; for now, Donnic left only the sheet.

And then… he was at a loss. Mixing medicine with potions was extremely unwise if you didn't know all the ingredients in the equation. He didn't dare so much as offer him a simple remedy to lower fever. A poor reaction could cause yet worse side effects.

Some water in a cup, set to Fenris' lips, was accepted, but suddenly it seemed too much, making Fenris jerk and gag, and Donnic hurriedly withdrew it before what little Fenris had taken was thrown up again. 

"Easy, my friend," he murmured, and then tensed and half-rose as Fenris let out a few rapid gasps as though he could not take a deep breath. He made an agonized noise and twisted back on himself in another vicious spasm, muscles of his limbs corded and taut as if they'd snap and fingers clawing at the sheet. His markings flashed, lightning-bright for a moment.

Donnic squinted through the afterimage and reached for Fenris' hand without thinking, but even as he realized that grabbing at the burning lyrium might cause more pain than comfort, Fenris' fingers closed around his with a crushing grip. "Here," Donnic said, hoping he sounded reassuring and not terrified. He held tightly back. "Here, we've got you."

When the spasm eased, Donnic eased his grip as well, but Fenris did not let go, so Donnic held on.

 

***

The house was quiet when Aveline entered. There was discarded armour on the floor, and this along with the footprints smeared on the rug was reassuring evidence that Donnic had managed to get Fenris to bed. Part of the worry eating at her eased away. She set down the supplies she'd gotten and shed her boots and gear, then followed the trail to the bedroom. 

Donnic was slouched in a chair at the bedside, chin on his chest in a doze. One of his arms lay across his stomach, hand tucked under the opposite armpit, and the other hand was on the bed, covering Fenris'. To her surprise, Aveline could see Fenris' fingers curled around Donnic's in return, and despite everything about the situation, that warmed her heart.

"Love," she said, voice low. Donnic roused with a slight startle. Fenris, too, shifted on the bed, muttered a noise. Donnic tightened his hand, and Fenris settled.

"How'd you make out?" he asked quietly, and Aveline told him who she'd sent off to the warehouse and the changes to the evening's roster. 

"Had our own medics take some for a look, but with no fresh sample the apothecary couldn't say much." She sighed. "The stuff is both degraded and concentrated, not much telling what it might do, especially with his marks." She looked at Fenris' bare, sweating torso and the lines of lyrium that traced over him, flickering faintly in the darkened room. 

She disliked this lack of options very much, it made her jaw clench that there was nothing more she could do, but she would not risk worse harm by blindly administering anything.

"He's taken some water," Donnic reported, his eyes on Fenris and his features creased in a tired frown. "Just here and there, nothing else though. He slept some, I think. Longer between the big fits, too. None yet this hour." They shared a look, relief and worry mingled and then Donnic's pained gaze back towards the bed made her heart hurt.

She wouldn't say she was used to this, but she had seen Fenris in a bad way more times than she liked, seen him wait, wounded and resentful, for Anders' magic in the field. She had dosed him herself with a potion, more than once, then watched to see if the effects would pull him back. It was never easy, but it was not new to her.

And Fenris had stood over her a time or two. The angry fear she'd seen in his face the first time he'd watched her lose consciousness along with too much blood had never left her; not a pleasant memory but the first evidence that he had extended his sphere of friendship beyond his argumentative bond with Hawke.

That time had been perhaps a year into their association. He'd caught her as she collapsed, and her last awareness had been of his face, and his hand supporting her head and panic at the edges of his expression.

He had not been near when she came to. 

She'd woken instead to Anders, kneeling beside her as he checked her with his magic and then, when she tried to rise, he'd made her lie back again with a gentle hand to endure the strange warm swish of healing magic through her innards, the pinches and twinges as things knitted a little bit more, making her ravenously hungry, more tired, but sound enough to travel.

Fenris had been sulking across the fire as she devoured her share of the rabbit stew, avoiding her eyes, only to glower at her whenever she wasn't looking right at him, and this for the whole trip back to Kirkwall. 

She didn't realize quite why until Varric took a bad blow a month later, and Aveline got to see Fenris go nearly rigid with tension and then give the dwarf the same angry cold shoulder afterwards.

She'd wondered if he was aware he reacted that way, if he'd noticed that he'd gotten close enough to them to care rather than simply worry about his own safety if they were in danger.

Donnic did not react quite so childishly when he was worried or afraid. The emotions rarely overcame him; he simply tried to be busy and do everything possible to mitigate the situation, swamping himself with distraction.

But now there was little more to do but wait, and they both had difficulty with that.

"I'll watch him awhile," she said. "You should eat." He nodded slowly, scrubbing a hand over his face, then stood and gave her the spot. 

He rose quietly and she took his chair. He dropped a kiss on her hair as she slid her hand over Fenris' in Donnic's place. His skin was still so hot. Donnic left them, arms raising over his head, spine and neck crackling as he stretched away the stiffness from his time sitting in the chair.

"Fenris," Aveline said quietly, and he muttered wordlessly in response, his fingers twitching against hers for a moment, but he didn't withdraw. "I've been by the mansion, brought you some fresh clothing." 

"...veline…" he murmured, a frown on his brow.

"Yes. I'm here," she said. 

"Donnic...?" came next, vague and perplexed.

"Not far," she told him. And, then, she thought, he fell asleep.

Donnic brought her a plate of food, then returned to the main room to clean the armour--hers and Fenris' both--that had been left scattered in the hall

And, she began to think over the next few hours, perhaps the worst was passing. Fenris was not struck by another spasm. He slept, if intermittently, though he remained terribly fevered, drank a very little more water. He tossed his head and groaned occasionally, hands rising to paw at his temples or press against his eyes. 

They traded short shifts of watching him, and then nearer to midnight, Donnic held him while Aveline replaced the sweat-stained bedding. That he didn't do more than mutter when he was lifted up showed how depleted he was, and it was not a pleasant sight. Elves were generally slighter than humans, and Fenris was not exceptionally broad for his race even if his height, when he wasn't inclined to hunch, matched her own. His narrow frame vastly belied the strength she knew was there, but Aveline still felt discomfited seeing Fenris cradled so bonelessly in Donnic's arms. 

After that, she shooed Donnic out to snatch real sleep in the sitting room, and she dozed in the chair, rousing whenever Fenris did to calm his feverish confusion. For a time it was mercifully quiet.

Then she was jolted awake by a shuddery noise, stilted breathing, and her heart dropped with the realization that Fenris' hand was cold and limp in hers. 

Not cool from a broken fever, _cold_.

She stood fast enough to make the chair scrape loudly on the floor, leaning down to check him. It was not limited to his extremities. He was cold, clammy, everywhere, breathing slow and so shallow. "Fenris!" she snapped, to no response, none either to her pinching his ear or dragging a rough knuckle down his chest. Those would get a reaction from any passed-out drunk, but he didn't move.

"Donnic!!" she barked, but he had heard her commotion and was there even as she called his name. "He's cold, too cold." She ran her hands over his midsection, no warmth to be found, not even in the lyrium markings. She pushed Fenris to the middle of the bed and yanked the quilt over him. "Like an ice-chill," she said, fear whipping through her, thinking of the boy she'd known as a child who'd died after trying to walk across a frozen pond, even though the adults had pulled him out as quickly as they could after he fell through. "He isn't waking. We need more on the hearth--" 

Donnic had bent close, and was shaking his head as his hand rested against Fenris' neck. "It'll take time to warm the room. Should we..." he began, trailed off, and Aveline frowned, her palm on Fenris' cold belly. Her concerns warred with each other--but not for long. She set her jaw and began removing her clothes.

"If he insists on it, he can be angry later, when he's well," she said, and as she stripped, Donnic hastened to the room's small hearth to build the warming embers higher. Clad in smallclothes only, Aveline slid in alongside Fenris. He did not react to her presence, or to her touch when she pulled him against her. 

***

"--starting to shiver," Fenris heard Donnic's tired, relieved voice, roused slowly to frigid, confusing consciousness. He shook, the tremor in every muscle. He felt scraped raw and seared with cold, the lyrium marks a vague, dull pressure through it all, and any motion was beyond his control. His body was trembling frozen weight. Everything ached and he was fiercely sore at the joints. His head seemed heavy as stone. 

Distant panic at the immobility thrashed blindly within him, then sank away as he began to recall where he was.

Beyond the layer of ice that was his skin, he could sense that warmth was close by. 

The hot weight of another person was against his left side; the contact burned in a distant way. For now, the whole of him was too cold for it to matter. He managed to concentrate enough to piece together what must have happened to cause Donnic to be so startlingly close.

"At last." That was Aveline, exhaustedly relieved. "Thank the Maker."

A heavy sigh from Donnic. Past the vagueness and the rattling cold, their voices were a welcome tether to consciousness. "Hmm," a low worried rumble from Donnic. "Come on," he spoke softly, near Fenris' ear. His voice sounded odd. Unsteady. The hot weight of his hand became distinct from the rest of the pressure against Fenris' side, and spread over his chest. He felt an impotent reflex to curl into that heat, but he couldn't even raise his eyelids, let alone turn onto his side. 

He'd heard of this, among the fog warriors. A person could get so thoroughly cold that their body no longer made its own warmth. Water and ice did it most often, but even pervasive inescapable damp or illness could cause it. To help the sufferer, warmth had to come from another source.

And Donnic was his. The knowledge settled into his bleary mind as bare fact, his emotions numbed from reaction. All he could think was that Donnic was so very warm, and he wanted to be warm too.

He lay, shivers wracking him in dizzying waves, and waited for that heat to seep inside.

"Are you alright," he heard Aveline ask gently, the question almost a statement, and Fenris had just sluggishly begun to wonder how he could answer when Donnic spoke.

"How do you manage, watching him follow Hawke around into pitched battle?" His voice was thick with some emotion Fenris couldn't name, fervent but terribly vulnerable.

"He's very strong," Aveline answered softly, and Fenris felt the mattress dip on his other side, and fingers brush through his hair, just lightly. "And I think he needs it, the fighting."

Donnic made a small sound of agreement, then after some moments of quiet, he said "how angry do you reckon he'll be after this?" 

As if it was a jest, but there was an audible edge of guilt in it. "He wanted to leave. Stayed because I asked, barely. But this..."

He _had_ stayed, because Donnic asked. Because Aveline carried him here. 

Whether he wanted… _them_ … what? Of course. They were his friends. They were... comrades, sure and trusted, beside him. But that was not the only-- _no_ , he couldn't--

Despite the slowness of his thoughts, an image formed, of himself huddled alone in the mansion, filthy gear still on, collapsed in front of the unlit hearth in the room where he slept. The place where he should've been.

But it burned away faster than it had formed when Donnic shifted slightly and the heat plastered to Fenris' side seemed to ripple inward. He could feel more of Donnic's body, broader than his, infinitely warmer, one open hand heavy on his chest…

"And if this, or worse, had happened to him alone? He's no fool," Aveline said. Fenris wasn't so sure about that, and indeed; "or if he is, he'll be alive." 

"If he--" Donnic fell silent.

"He will recover." Aveline sounded so determined. Fenris thought she must be right. 

More movement, rustle and shift of the blankets, and then he was flanked by body heat on both sides and his discomfort was not gone, he was still so cold but the cautious awareness that it would all soon be _better_ surrounded him just as they did.

 _Trapped_ , a faint but barbed whisper pierced his foggy thought. _You are trapped._

But he wasn’t. The presence around him embraced. it didn't bind.

This felt more like he did in battle, with Aveline and Hawke's shields to either side and Anders' paralyzing glyphs arrayed around them. Varric with covering crossbow fire, Isabela’s knives weaving through them all. This was like Aveline leaning over him after she'd sent him sprawling during a sparring match and reaching a hand down for him to haul himself up. Like Donnic sitting across from him over cards, smile in front, hearth fire behind, food and wine in his belly.

" _We will go, if you wish_ ," Donnic had said, willing to bring him to where he'd be alone.

He did not wish that. 

Silence for a time. They both lay with him as he shook, and ever so gradually, warmth returned to his body. 

The pain in his joints began to ebb, his awareness sharpened, and despite a fatigue he guessed he would be feeling for days, he did not sink again into sleep.

Aveline's breathing, however, became slow and even, the faint whistle at the end of each exhale a familiar sound from many nights camping out on the coast or the mountain. If she slept, she felt safe. Surely due to Donnic's restive wakefulness 

For Donnic did not sleep; his breathing changed, hitched, closed into quiet inaudible murmurs here and there. Fenris felt a strange similarity to watching Donnic mull over a hand of cards, his big fingers fanning them out, and more often than not the side his other thumb scraping against his jaw or being gently gnawed on in thought. Donnic murmured to himself then too, sometimes enough voice in it for Fenris to catch the little snatches of consideration for this or that likelihood, this or that run of suits or values.

At first it had been… _annoying_ , and Fenris had bitten back his irritation and felt conflicted, during those first bouts, whether it was appropriate to express that annoyance and risk driving away Donnic, who was, in his limited experience with such things, honestly attempting to befriend him. At the time, Fenris had lacked the memories and experience to easily navigate such a conundrum. All he had been sure of was that he would rather have Donnic's company than go without it, mutters or no.

And rapidly it had become a familiar thing, and, if not half so useful a tell as Fenris might have hoped in regards to his strategy, the irritation still made way for some kind of odd warmth, whenever they settled in for a match, and inevitably Donnic ended up with some combination that set off his thoughtful, not-quite-internal monologue.

Aveline's steady breathing and Donnic's half-spoken thoughts enfolded him now as his body shivered warmth back into itself. 

***

Dawn was still a ways off, Donnic thought. Probably. He wasn't sure now. The short shifts watching over Fenris and brief nap he'd had made the exact hour elusive. The window was dark, except for a tinge of pale glow from the lamplight in the street. The room was dim, but he could see outlines by the light of the low-burning fire in the little hearth.

Between the fire and their collective body heat, the air was warm. The quilt over him, and the added blankets were a reassuring weight. He'd welcome the moment it became too warm. For now Fenris was still a discomfitingly cool length of trembling limbs. Not shaking so violently now, instead shivering waves came and eased off at longer and longer intervals. Donnic had put a hand on his chest at some point without realizing. It remained there still, spread across too-cool skin and even colder lines of lyrium. One finger was at the line of his collarbone, the skin there so thin...

That was... something close to intimate, something Fenris had never asked for; while Fenris seemed to display visible appreciation of men and women now and then, he'd certainly not shown it for his married friends. So, this contact was unbecoming in many ways. But Fenris still felt so cold, and it was difficult to resist the instinct to bear hug him until he was warm. But none of this entitled Donnic to liberties. Not now.

Especially _now_ , he thought tiredly, _especially_ now. If the actual danger had passed, the fever and the chill, Donnic wondered if the worst was to come.

He remembered what Aveline said about the potion's actual intended effect. "You think _that_ could still happen?" he'd asked, as she changed the sheets and he carefully held Fenris, chest twisting with a sick kind of apprehension.

"Anything could," she said grimly. "He said Anders would be fine, but Anders was affected normally from the start. If it hits him while he's so weak… I'm not sure if he can even..." She'd trailed off with a vague suggestive gesture and an embarrassed shrug, gave him a pained look that probably mirrored his own. "And as for inviting... help..." Her mouth flattened and slanted in a frown.

Aveline had described Anders becoming rapidly so far gone that he had barely seemed aware of anything but Hawke within minutes. But those two were involved already. That situation was obvious and much simpler.

For Fenris, though…

But perhaps nothing would happen.

He let himself feel Fenris' breathing just once more, the narrow chest rising under his hand as Fenris breathed in, lowering as he exhaled. Donnic closed his mouth against a sigh and withdrew his hand. It had been there long enough there was a faint tingle at the lack of contact.

Then, as his hand lifted, Fenris' breath caught. He took a deep, shaky breath and shifted weakly. Donnic tried to be still as he could, grimacing at himself for the unintended consequence. Perhaps Fenris was only sleeping more lightly.

But no. "Uh…" Fenris spoke, or tried to, voice a dry whisper. "Hhhh…" he swallowed audibly, but didn't say anything more. 

"Fenris?" he asked softly. "You were too cold," he said, voice low, wondering if he understood, wondering if the reason would matter, if Fenris being aware of this would ease the shock. "It was like an ice chill. Dangerous. We had to keep you warm. I'm sorry," he added. He sensed that Aveline was awake now, her breathing turned alert.

Fenris made a weak noise of, perhaps, acknowledgement, then a wave of shudders seized him, stronger than any in awhile. Donnic couldn't be sure if that was the fact that Fenris had awoken to other people so close and confining him, or simply more shivering.

"Fenris," Aveline said, and her voice was as soft as it ever got. "You're with us. Do you remember why?" After a few long seconds, Fenris grunted assent again, and Donnic let out a breath. 

"You need to drink, while you can," Aveline added. The mattress shifted a bit as Aveline rose from the bed. Donnic watched her pale body move in the warm dark, the sure and efficient motion of her.

She filled a cup and returned. Donnic sat to help shift a bleary, trembling Fenris up enough to drink. She offered only small sips to start, but when the nausea from before did not seize him again, she let him drink his fill. Donnic had an arm under his back, felt his muscles react too slowly as he worked to keep himself steady. One arm rose shakily, fingers curling around Aveline's wrist. Fenris held on for the duration, until the cup was drained, didn't let go when Aveline had to move away, so that Donnic had to gently pry his fingers free. 

Then Fenris struggled mightily to sit up all the way, shivers running down his arms, and Donnic supported him until he was seated. His arms shook as he braced himself, sagging against them but upright. 

His head hung and Donnic could not catch his expression in the shadows of the room.

"D'you need the privy?" Aveline asked, once she'd refilled the cup and left it on the side table. Fenris let out a heavy breath after a few long moments and gave a single nod. She pulled one of his arms over her shoulder and more than half-carried him out and down the hall. 

Donnic used the interval to pull clean clothing for them all from the dresser. One of Aveline's shirts for Fenris would do better than his, he decided, and picked an old, soft one. He checked the hearth, resettled the embers, then went to investigate the pot of broth he'd been making from their last stew. Fenris had taken water, perhaps he could take a little more. He took a mug back to the room, in time for the other two to return, Fenris lurching along beside Aveline. 

He sank back onto the bed with a vague stare, then startled when Donnic put the clean shirt around his shoulders, and Donnic paused. "Something to sleep in," he said. "Keep you warm."

Fenris stared at him, blinking slowly, the familiar green eyes nearly black in the dark, hooded and blankly exhausted, then lifted shaky arms to cooperate with being dressed. Once he had the first arm though he reached out and put his unsteady fingers against Donnic's chest, not unlike he had when he'd first stumbled through the front door with Aveline. 

Aveline found the mug Donnic had prepared. "Drink what you can of this," she told Fenris. 

Fenris drank, not hungrily but doggedly, and drained the cup as he had with the water. When he fumbled as he let go, slumping and listing to the side, Donnic caught him and laid him the rest of the way back down. His shivers returned violently, not surprising after having been taken from the warm bed. The broth would ease it quicker, hopefully.

Fenris struggled to move until he'd rolled to one side, and curled in on himself as best he could, hiding his face in the pillow where Aveline's head had been, almost vanishing under the covers. He lay, tense, still trembling, and every line of him coiled and inviting nothing from them at all.

If nothing else, that probably meant his mental faculties were returning.

"Warm enough? Do you need anything?" Donnic asked carefully.

" _No_ ," Fenris' immediate, muffled reply was bitten off, and Donnic had expected it, and half welcomed it, as it meant--he hoped--that this thing really had turned the corner. Yet there was a sting from it that he had no right to feel. "Go." The word was hoarse, then, "thank you," Fenris muttered, like a belated afterthought.

Aveline shared a look with Donnic, commiseration over their remaining worry. "Sleep," she said to Fenris.

"We're close by," Donnic told him, probably unnecessarily, and followed Aveline out.

***

They left him alone, which was a bewilderment of relief and shame. He had just pushed them from their own bed. He ought to be on a pallet on their floor now, at best. He _ought_ to be at the mansion. Not here, where they slept.

But.

He pushed his face against the pillow where Aveline's head had rested, breathed in her scent, and quietly despaired.

The unwelcome beginnings of induced arousal were oozing into his guts, a strange and detached sensation devoid of actual heat--like the rest of him was, right now.

He could hardly move and yet there it was, insistent and expanding, making his raw-feeling skin even more sensitized to the scrape of linen against it, to the softness of the shirt Donnic had put on him--there's when he'd realized, as Donnic's warm hands held and touched and dressed him, when Fenris had reached to touch, again, found solid muscle and body heat at his fingertips. None of that now, only the drag of his own chilly skin against himself, and the way his cock was slowly but undeniably hardening with no touch or thought to stir it.

And he still felt so _cold_. 

Donnic had suggested they might remain and _that_ \--Fenris snarled silently against the pillow, then swallowed the noise that threatened to follow as Aveline's scent came to him again--he had _wanted_ that, instantly and hungrily. 

After waking to the two of them...This had all seemed that much more endurable, because of their presence.

But now, it was--he gritted his teeth against the lust worming up through his belly, and seethed. His fists clenched weakly, then opened with tired despair and a clinging film of contempt at himself. 

The compelled desire was seeping into his mind, too. He'd be too addled to care about any of that, soon enough, wouldn't he? Just like Anders. And what would happen then? 

The effects of the potion were stirring up thoughts that he had kept quietly to himself for years, and he hadn't the mental strength to do much more than feel it happen, to know the whole time that he was being driven further from reason and restraint.

Just as well he could barely lift an arm. He had no desire for them to be faced with controlling him while he was gripped by a mindless appetite. The lack of mobility kept nothing back from his thoughts, however; both memory and fantasy yielded to the chemical summons. Sights and sensations he'd treasured rarely and privately seeped sluggishly up to the surface of his mind, and coalesced there with painful vividness.

Bright strands of Aveline's hair escaping the helm she wore outside the city. How it had begun catching his eye until he had realized he enjoyed the sight, and had made himself stop looking. Particularly the times she removed it, disheveled and sweaty, when they were making camp .

There was her side colliding with his to shift him over as she threw her shield up and stopped a strike meant for him. The fierce grunt as she met the blow, the dart of her eyes to make sure he was where she intended him to be, which was, as always, protected.

Donnic's curious and notably undaunted regard when he had first joined the card game with Hawke's eclectic group. That broad, delighted smile when Fenris had agreed to play Diamondback with him.

The wide-eyed laugh as Donnic gave ground under a blow from Fenris' sword during a practice bout. Never afraid. Impressed, surprised, occasionally wincing when Fenris failed to control his blows well enough, but not ever any fear. 

The wide grip of his palm if Fenris reached out to pull him up after knocking him down.

The weight of that warm hand over his chest. And Aveline's bare, smooth forearm gripped in his hand as he drank water she held for him. 

Strength, in them both. Care, from them both. And--now he knew firsthand--so much warmth.

Skin on his. He'd wondered, and not terribly deep inside himself, he'd wanted. 

But he had told them to leave and their warmth had gone with them.

And, even cold as he was, he felt exactly what the rotten draught was doing to his body. He mouth was wet, his cock was hardening. He curled a hand around it, hearing the pained sound that escaped him at the icy touch of his palm. The contact was unpleasant, a cold, stiff-fingered, weak grip, and it curbed the sluggish lust, a little.

That did not last.

He kept still, and even so the cold made way for an empty, false heat, a pressure that filled his groin and swelled his cock while the rest of his body struggled to move, any motion like swimming in mud. 

He shifted in the bed, hands sliding back to the mattress. His fingers curled weakly on the sheet, hips rocking faintly against the unsatisfying weight of the blankets as he stared upward, seeing very little. 

_Just… wait. It will pass. It will end. It **will**._

He fought to keep his eyes open, a vain attempt to avoid the images the lust put behind closed eyelids. It did work, for a while. Until... it didn't, and his mind's eye overcame him altogether, pulling him inward and away from the firelit dimness of the room. 

He thought of Hawke and Aveline, their strength and familiar, striking looks, to devour with his eyes--and what if he could touch, touch where they were firm, where they were soft, where they were wet and warm and he could slide inside and spend himself.

And more.

Varric's hands, precise and slick with crossbow oil--Bethany with a perfect, gentle touch and soft voice crying out--or Isabela, dark skin and grinning, glinting eyes, hidden knives and so agile despite such grand curves to press his face against, or his fingers; her mouth on his cock would be so clever and she'd push wet fingers into him, all stretch and burn and building pleasure. Jethann at the Blooming Rose with his biting lilt of a voice turned to moans as Fenris held on and fucked him.

And… and Donnic, rough and plain and lovely, broad and warm over him, holding them both in his calloused hand--or Donnic behind him as he sank into Aveline--or the two close by as he fucked his hand and watched their mouths carry each other to loving climax.

It all surged and ebbed in disjointed snatches of pretend sensation that did not help with the absence of anyone in arm's reach to fuck or be fucked by, or even just to touch. It only teased and coldly inflamed as he struggled to find purchase enough simply to rut and come on his own.

He lurched into a roll, heaving and dragging himself until he was facedown, the soft shirt pulled tight as it caught against the blankets, one arm fisted up at his face, the other trapped beneath him.

He pushed his hips against the bed in weak little thrusts, pressed two knuckles against his open mouth, cold on his tongue, struggling to find the strength to sustain motion long enough to overwhelm the arousal and expend it.

It surged in him, ravenous hunger in his mind, but his body lacked the power to sate it, and he panted into the pillow as he dredged the strength just to move--please--move.

Desperation drew his limbs together, pushed him up, swaying, on all fours, and he groped and fumbled for his cock with one hand.

He whimpered as his fingers closed clumsily around himself, the pressure mattering more than the cold now, enough to give a tiny measure of ease. 

But three limbs could not keep him upright in this weakened state; balance was something his body couldn't maintain. He barely noticed as his elbow buckled and he leaned to the side instead of falling forward. The friction of the bedding against itself only delayed the motion a few moments before he tilted and fell off the side of the bed. The drag of the blankets pulled the nightstand to tip over, spilling the water cup over the side of his head with a splash of cold as he collided with the floor.

That cast him decisively out of the haze of arousal and back into the hot-and-cold tremble of his half-numb body, tangled in the bedding, on the floor of Donnic and Aveline's bedroom.

***

The living area was not furnished for two to sleep, but Donnic, despite lack of much rest so far this night, wasn't sure he even could anymore. 

Aveline seemed similarly restless. They said little, neither trying to convince the other to try sleeping, trailing to and fro in each others' wake as they tidied away armour and cleaning supplies, swept the floor clean of the mud and dried blood Aveline and Fenris had carried in.

Donnic tended the stove fire in the kitchen that kept the broth cooking, and Aveline filled and set the kettle there for tea. 

Then they stood, leaning into each other, quiet for the long minutes it took for the steam to pour from the spout. 

"I want to bring him some," Aveline said, almost to herself, making two cups and handing Donnic the one she spooned honey into. 

"I think he's had enough of us watching him," Donnic said, trying to convey matter-of-factness he didn't feel. The words came out tired and unhappy.

"I think… he wasn't angry," she said, curling her arm into his, and leaning to press her cheek to his shoulder as she waited for her tea to cool. The woman could withstand a blow to her shield that would shatter his arm but she did not like her tea to be too hot. "I think he understood."

"Tomorrow will tell," Donnic sighed, sipping his own tea, the burning heat and sweet aftertaste a comfort as always, but not as much as he would like right now; he was too preoccupied and dearly wanted to put Fenris into a nest of blankets and hold him close and ply him with hot beverages himself, be able to see him and know he was comfortable, not simply that he was well enough to endure whatever was left of his ordeal. 

And he had little doubt Aveline thought likewise, that they'd both prefer most of all to have Fenris asleep between them again. But properly warm, properly resting. Safe. 

In truth, it was what he wanted with Aveline most nights, too, just for her to be asleep next to him. It was all too common for their shifts to be mismatched, or for her to have planned and delegated a week of work, and be off chasing evildoers with Hawke, so that they each often slept alone, paths crossing as one left and the other returned. And it was well and good, those days, to make love in the minutes or occasional hours they had before their paths diverged again, there was frequently time for it... but the mornings, days, or nights when they could _both_ remain in bed afterwards were not nearly often enough.

Tonight might've been one, Donnic thought in distant wistfulness, then grimaced at himself for the thought. He shifted, turning his head to press his mouth against Aveline's hair. She'd had time for a wash at the guard barracks, presumably while waiting for the healers' lack of results, and the clean smell of her eased his heart a little.

She was here now, not on shift or out in the wilds. Fenris was here now, and not left to his own suffering in his dusty, drafty lair of a home. That was a lot to be grateful for.

He started to say as much. "I--" 

A thud and crash from the bedroom made them startle and separate, tea abandoned as they rushed down the hall, Donnic first and Aveline behind holding a lamp she'd snatched up, and she stepped inside as he ducked down to the tangle of blankets and feebly struggling limbs on the floor next to the bed.

Donnic felt Aveline step back slightly to allow more room, and he knelt to put aside the spilled cup, and pull away part of the twisted-up top layer of blankets. Fenris was breathing rapidly, a glare on his face fixed upward until his eyes, wet in the lamplight, snapped to Donnic.

"No, you _can't_ \--" he gasped. "It--" he stopped, uneven gulps of air heaving his chest.

Donnic's heart sank. Aveline said what he couldn't bring himself to. "The draught did work, didn't it." Her tone was not that of a question, but still very gentle. Fenris flinched, his face unsuccessfully struggling for impassivity.

He stared at them, eyes wide and gleaming and moving between them, silver-chased dark limbs trapped in twisted cloth. A look of ravenous lust took over before he hissed and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Yes--" he gritted, then struggled through maintaining a long breath, at last caught enough of himself to speak. "But I can--manage." He made an abortive lean up toward the bed, sagged back, limbs still half pinned to him by the blankets. 

"I know," was all Donnic said, trying to contain his worry from making him sound overly solicitous. "Then we'll just… here, let me?" He reached out, paused, and when Fenris didn't protest, pulled at the blankets here and there until they loosened and slid away. The night shirt pooled loose around Fenris, the thigh-length allowing him some modesty, though Donnic didn't miss the tented outline of his full-mast erection. 

Donnic leaned near to slide an arm around Fenris, meaning to help him rise and return to the bed. As Donnic drew close, Fenris' breath quickened. He made a little growl and heaved himself into a lunge that flattened him against Donnic's chest and pushed him backward to sit heavily on the floor. Fenris' face drove cold and wet into Donnic's neck, hips sliding against Donnic's own, all at once, but only once, before his body began to shrivel back, a furious noise escaping him.

Donnic stopped him falling all the way backwards with one arm, and Fenris gave a ragged, guttural exhalation, a wild look coming over him, like a trapped creature.

"No--look, no, it's alright. Here," Donnic kept his voice even and quiet. "I'm standing now," he said, getting them both to their feet. Aveline stepped nearer once they were upright. Fenris lurched towards her, heavily leaning on Donnic's arm, then choked and shrank away.

Donnic let him move as he wished, only made sure to keep him standing. He couldn't release him fully, he was bearing most of his weight. Fenris swayed, his drawn face flickering between blind hunger and mortification. In the lamplight his marks gleamed softly, his white hair catching the yellow flame's colour, his lean shape still trembling in fits and starts, all shrouded in a too-large shirt.

"The draught's done this," Aveline told him, low and firm. "We understand."

"We'll get you settled, leave you be," Donnic promised. Fenris did not look reassured, only miserable, gaze dragging up and away. He bared his teeth, an angry grimace at nothing as his hands flared open, then curled closed again. He shuddered and leaned the faintest bit against Donnic's hold. In silent appeal or further exhaustion, Donnic couldn't say, but perhaps now was the time to at least offer a choice. A brief glance at his wife and she lifted her chin in affirmative acknowledgment.

"...I could stay," Donnic said, a suggestion that moved entirely across the line he'd held for years. Fenris said nothing, but went very still, stared at Donnic with sharp, startled eyes.

"Or I," Aveline's voice was feather-light.

Fenris took a shallow breath, looked past Donnic at Aveline, panting and incredulous.

"You'd--?" Fenris rasped the words, then swallowed, a wet sound.

"Yes," Aveline said, her voice still low. Calm and firm. "Either of us would." Fenris made a hoarse sound of disbelief. 

"Both of us would," Donnic murmured, and Fenris swayed bodily.

His overheated gaze turned inward. That hunger remained but it was buried, for this moment, beneath the shock and whatever internal debate was taking place. Donnic waited, and hoped the lucidity would last long enough for him to answer.

Fenris closed his exhausted eyes. There was a weak dragging tug at Donnic's shirt and he looked down, seeing one lyrium-marked hand grasping at the fabric.

"...You… both..." The words were faint noise, not a question, not quite.

"Yes." Donnic's reply was low, but emphatic. More than he ought to have allowed it to be, maybe. Fenris exhaled noisily and sank forward against him. Donnic held him close. His eyes opened again after a few breaths, just halfway, glints of green looking for Aveline. She stepped closer and Fenris grabbed out, getting a handful of her shirt land clinging, his thumb resting at the lower curve of her breast. She covered his hand with hers, and Fenris sighed again, grip clenching harder.

He pressed close once more, the chilly skin of his face finding Donnic's neck like before, and Donnic tightened his arm around the lean, shaking body. "You're still cold," Donnic murmured, with a quiet reproving tsk that caused what might have been a faint, pained laugh against his throat.

"I just--need--" Fenris was barely audible. He moved against Donnic, clung as best he could, fingertips scraping at his shirt. 

"Come here," Donnic said, awash with tremendous relief and a sharpness in his chest that made his eyes prickle. He held Fenris up, cupped a hand around his hip and his backside to press him close, assisting him with a first solid grind that made him suck in air and make a broken growl against Donnic's neck.

"Alright. Bed," Aveline commanded softly, and gently extricated herself from Fenris' grip. Light and shadow shifted as she righted the table and set the lamp on it. Donnic moved Fenris the half step back to the bed, hitched a knee up and leaned down to settle him again. The wordless sound of protest as the gap opened between them went straight through to Donnic's insides, deep and low. 

Fenris' eyes pinched closed, his hand crawling up over his own hip before it shook from the effort and slid away. Donnic lay down with him brushed the hem of the shirt up himself, uncovering the flushed erection, wet at the head with precome that shone where it had slid trails across his lower belly.

Then Aveline shook the blankets back over the bed, cocooning them in, and the mattress dipped as she slid into bed on Fenris' other side. Fenris breathed deeper, leaned his face towards her. Donnic smiled a little in recognition of that particular reaction, and carefully rolled Fenris onto his side towards her. Donnic nudged up against his back, engulfing him as best he could, tucking knees up behind Fenris' cold legs, no longer curbing the urge to warm him as much as he was able. 

Donnic saw Aveline's fingers slide over the back of Fenris' neck, smooth forward and then back again, then pressing to tug him near. The sound of a soft kiss. On the forehead, by the angle. Fenris gave a little whimper of relief that made Donnic's chest hurt. He pressed his mouth to the back of Fenris' neck, breathed over the nape, nose in his pale hair.

He slid his hand over Fenris' cool stomach first; despite his urgency it seemed too abrupt to simply grab hold of him. But Fenris produced a growling, desperate moan, and Donnic stopped hesitating. He took him in hand, closed his fingers around silken skin, the only part of Fenris that was warm, it felt like; rigid and ready. He stroked his hand up, palm sliding over the head. Fenris breathed out a hungry noise and nudged back in what might've been a thrust if he'd been able. 

Donnic wanted to know how he'd truly like it, wanted the oil he should've already retrieved from the dresser. He futilely wanted Fenris here by his own choice, impossible as that had ever seemed, instead of--like this; cold, weak, almost mute, coerced by some substance he'd not wanted in his body, an invasion that stole control from him, and forced instinct to overtake reason.

But here they were, Fenris weakly but desperately seeking his--or any--touch, so he gave it. He stroked him carefully, then harder, rougher, as quick wet gasps and hands dragging at Aveline's shirt demanded. 

Fenris curled in on himself a little, tightening between them, his knees drew up, and Donnic met Aveline's eyes over Fenris' lowered head. Her brow was knitted with worry and deep affection, and her hand moved in Fenris' hair, caressing as his shoulders trembled, stroking just as she did for Donnic sometimes, when he was very close to coming.

***

Donnic's hand grazed along Aveline's belly as it moved. She felt it through her shirt, felt and saw his strong fingers and his body curled around Fenris, felt Fenris clinging to her shirt.

She kept moving her fingers through his hair, a helpless gesture to soothe through the raw intensity of this lust. What he still even felt by now, she couldn't guess. It seemed very little like pleasure, nothing at all like Anders' amorous fixation. Here it looked only like the exhausted pursuit of relief. There had been no foreplay, no natural build of arousal to bring him to this point. Neither she nor Donnic had done this--there had been no learning his body. No discovery of how he responded. Ragged breathing and cold fingertips pressing against her through the thin linen of her shirt were what Fenris could offer in the way of communication now, the audible edge of desperation scraping through in little hitches of his voice.

Still. That wasn't all she heard; low murmurs from Donnic; they were sounds she knew well, perfectly recalled from many of the times Donnic was knuckles deep in her or nestled between her legs and she was close to coming--encouragement, low and sure, for her reaching her impending climax. 

She shifted slightly, feeling the warm, hungering swell of her own arousal between her legs. The sounds and the nearness and Fenris' fingers pressing at her were stirring her body, the intimate knowledge of how Donnic felt when he curled around _her_ that way further stoking the heat, despite the situation that had brought them to this point.

At least she had control of it, she thought, as Fenris clutched weakly at her. Donnic said, quiet and rough, "Here. We have you. Come, come." Aveline caught the inside of her cheek between her teeth and wished this was not what it was, wished that she could pull one of them over her and into her. 

Fenris made a noise in the back of his throat, dragged at her once more and then with a growling whine, he came. Warmth that his body ought not to have spared wetted her shirt, Fenris' body clenching almost as if in another spasm. For a moment she feared that was what had happened, but he relaxed slowly, panting, and didn't collapse into the boneless sag of before.

Fenris raised his head slowly, a hitch upward, a pause, then again with each breath, a little more until his forehead brushed her mouth again, and she pressed her lips there as before. 

His little gasp sounded loud in the space between them, a stretching moment where he tensed up, and then he sighed and pressed slightly against the kiss.

He had said, before, that a climax would lessen the urges for a time. Aveline still smoothed her fingers through his hair, gently following the curve of his skull, the point of his ear tracing against her palm. She waited to see if that held true now, after the ordeal of other symptoms that had plagued him. She couldn't imagine the mess inside his head from all this.

Leaving the room earlier had made the sinking feeling in her gut come to rest like a stone; the crash that had brought them back had been almost a relief, for all that she, like Donnic, was not at all certain what the morning light would show when this was all over.

Now, Donnic shifted, his arm moving up to curl around Fenris' chest, and Aveline had to let her hand slip free of Fenris' hair as he pulled his head up again enough for her to see his face, lit by the lamp at an angle that caught the faint shine of his marks. His eyes were not desperate now, nor closed and angry, but still very, very tired. He stared at her half-lidded, searching her face, a tiny frown between his eyebrows. 

_How do you feel_ , she wanted to ask, but his eyes held her and she let that be. His mouth opened and he took a deeper breath than she'd heard him manage since they had rushed back into the room. He moved, hands pressing a little, hips shifting--he nudged further back into Donnic's embrace, and past Fenris' head she saw Donnic settling his cheek against Fenris' hair. 

One of Fenris' hands let go from where it held onto her shirt, worked its way up, until she felt shaky, cold fingertips on her jaw. The contact withdrew right away, so she touched his wrist, stroked her knuckles down the inside, where the skin was softer. She felt the fingertips on her jaw again. Perhaps meant to be light, but pressing clumsily, dragging a little as he ran them below and touched her throat. 

He felt her pulse for a moment before moving again, reaching farther up, his hand shaking and he fought to keep his arm raised. His fingers threaded into her hair, where more than a few strands had come loose from her braid. He caught a lock between two fingers, slid them down the length, his eyes not on hers then, but on what he was doing, careful, so careful, like he wasn't sure he was really seeing it. 

The gesture carried in it a warmth she had never seen in him before.

She'd years ago let go of any plan, or hope, to be granted such a thing as that.

Those kinds of plans, the ones she made with all those regimented formalities, had worked so well with her dear, proper Wesley. And then they hadn't at all with Donnic, who, once he'd at last understood her intention, had "courted" her in return the same way he worked, spoke, fought--blunt, effective, and no hesitation.

This accident that had pushed them all into one bed--this was no plan at all, or even an idea, prior to mere hours ago. It had all been a veritable ambush, and the myriad of catastrophic ways it might have played out had loomed at the back of her mind since Fenris' first collapse. And it was an ambush for Fenris most of all, and then a siege as he was repeatedly trapped by the side effects of a concoction not intended for his body's unique use of lyrium.

Given his past--both what she knew about and what she feared she didn't--he was coping with this better than she would have dared hope.

And maybe, with him staring like this, touching her like this, she could guess why; he did feel safe enough, here.

His trust... she dared to think she had it--a measure of it anyway. Friendly comradeship, certainly, enough that he felt free enough to mock her from time to time, and accept the same in return with that ever-surprising streak of humour and his familiar sardonic chuckle. They didn't share much leisure time, but the bedrock beneath was the years-established certainty about each other in battle. The sense that told her when he was next to her or at her back. Their confidence with each other's presence in a fight was utterly solid. 

She suspected it was somewhat the reverse with Donnic. Fenris did not--could not--have the same practiced cooperation in battle with him, there'd never been circumstances to nurture that, but she dared say Donnic had been by far the best person to deliver him to earlier. Few people were welcomed regularly into Fenris' home, and Donnic was one of fewer still who had ever been explicitly invited.

Donnic had told her, after she'd found out about his 'illicit' card games there, that they'd started playing because he'd simply _asked._

The things Aveline was very good at doing _simply_ were fighting, and running the guard. Drills. Shift management. Orders. If it came to asking about, or speaking of, anything liable to involve how she felt, or how others did--a by-the-book approach was usually not so effective. As most of her friends had seen during that ordeal with her first dogged approach to Donnic. 

And lovemaking fell into that as well. Blessed as she'd been to have been with Wesley for as long as she had, they'd often assumed instead of speaking, left things silent that would have been better said aloud. They'd been young, neither very experienced. Likewise their time in bed had been shy, despite all their enthusiasm and affection, and not terribly skilled. 

And then years later Donnic elbowed past that reticence with earnest, blunt _questions._ He'd even gone to the Maker-cursed Rose for research. To rather fine results, she could not deny, even if it had taken some getting used to. Donnic was earnestly shameless in the right circumstances.

But this, now… 

This was a man they wanted, but who was here with them because of terrible duress. A wary, private man, stripped of his armour, within and without.

And not as a result of a simple question, or a formal approach, either of which they'd feared would cause him to be lost to them altogether. This was a sledgehammer through a wall that had pinned him down. 

It should not have taken such a thing for this to happen, for Fenris to look at her with that exhausted, cautious understanding, to rest with his back against Donnic's chest, to touch her hair.

And surely it ought to have been so much worse than it was. But he trusted them enough to accept this for now, instead of bear it alone. 

"Is it better?" Donnic's quiet question broke the silence. 

Fenris startled just a little, came back to himself with a flash of mingled shame and of relief on his face. His eyes dropped from Aveline's, his hand fell away. She caught it lightly, closed her hand around it, pressed it to her chest, above her breasts. His eyes darted up again, unsure, but he answered Donnic. "Yes..." he said almost inaudibly. He sounded faintly disbelieving. There was a pause, and then, "thank you," he breathed. It was warm under the blankets now, even if Fenris himself wasn't yet. His hand was still too cool under hers. But perhaps closer to normal, as if he'd slid under the covers after a winter night shift. She hoped he'd warm as quickly as she or Donnic did on those nights.

His eyes drifted shut and then startled open. "I'll likely--again," he said, apprehension darkening his eyes. 

"Then rest if you can," Aveline told him. "For now, we'll see to what you need." 

"What I…" Fenris half repeated . "I-- _you_ \--" he swallowed, eyes closing over his frown while he struggled to speak. "Stay," he managed.

"We'll be here," Donnic told him. Fenris let out a breath that shuddered at the end, but he didn't open his eyes again, and slowly he eased into sleep.

***

The first orgasm brought on a respite, but all too brief. 

Fenris woke up again to a straining erection and his own hoarse panting, and from there he tipped into long, acute hours of fevered confusion and painful arousal.

He woke to heat pouring off of him as though the chill had never been, and surging, blinding hunger that sliced along his lyrium marks, cutting deep with each throb of his pulse, the light flickering eerily in time. Some faint notion of what was happening still clung to the simmering edge of his reason. "Please," he gasped, because he knew there would be an answer.

And he was met by ready hands, reached out and found soft cloth over cool skin, curve of a breast to fill his palm and naked thighs shifting against his as strong fingers steadied his hip, hand closing around him slick with oil, the motion a glide that drew him mercifully quickly over the peak to burst with a searing crackle along his tattoos and release him from consciousness for a little while.

He woke to his face burrowed against a stubbled jaw and throat, squirming and whining and didn't bother trying to understand more than the soothing tone of the words spoken to and past him. It was enough to recognize _who_ again, to feel the relief at their presence, let their touch and the runaway lust drag him onward through the barbed-wire heat of the draught in his blood, until it overran him again.

And again, and again.

He woke to dim predawn, ready and needy but it _hurt_ , it hurt so much. He clawed weakly at the gentle fingers that touched him, noises grated from his throat in protest. Sore, raw, too much and yet still _hard_ , past swollen to inflamed so that a touch felt like being burned. But he needed, he _needed_ \--"Would he--?" Donnic's voice reached him as he was cradled close, then the uncertain sound of Aveline's reply. Donnic slid his palm along Fenris' thigh, nudging it aside to reach between. "Fenris?" Hand slipped past his drawn-tight sac, a big blunt finger, oil-smooth, pressed lightly and yes, yes, _please_ as he squirmed against the tentative pressure. "Alright, alright. We've got you. Love…?"

A pause and a shift. He felt it and he saw, half lidded and hands still fisted in Donnic's shirt. Aveline tipped more oil into one palm as she knelt at his side. Fenris rocked his hips, pulled at Donnic's shirt with pained urgency. "Easy, love, easy," Donnic murmured against his cheek, holding him steady and near as his other hand helped one leg bend and splay, hand under his thigh, fingers smoothing and soothing but not hardly close enough to where he needed it. "She'll take good care," his reassuring murmur spoke of familiarity. Fenris had an abrupt and lucid flash of Aveline doing this for Donnic, sending a stuttering current of real desire through the muddy boiling lust, just as she smoothed oil generously over him, and one finger pressed carefully but steadily in. He writhed in Donnic's hold, against her finger and then she curled it and pressed and at last at _last_.

She was steady and perfect, sliding smoothly in until he came--dry, not for the first time now, but the relief was the same, the boneless exhaustion the same, and though he maintained semi-consciousness long enough to down the cup of water Donnic held for him, sleep swiftly pulled him under again. 

***

He came to a foggy kind of awareness, and an equally formless relief even before the slow realization that he was not aroused at all. He was on his back, pinned across the chest, a weak shock that eased as the sensation resolved into the warm weight of Donnic's arm.

More filtered gradually past that; he hurt. He was sore, raw in places. Muscles ached from unusual and excessive exertion. He was near parched with thirst. But the fatigue kept it all at bay, his lyrium was quiescent, and he drifted easily, no need to move, tucked between two familiar sources of warmth, their scent and their sleeping breathing, and he was calm.

His side was pressed close against Donnic's chest, and on the other side he could feel Aveline's fingers curled around his hand. 

Time moved him in and out of sleep, and whenever he woke it was to them close against him, and whenever he managed to look past heavy lids, morning lit the room a little brighter.

Fenris pinched his eyes shut against it every time. Morning meant an end to this little den of warmth, he knew it. Meant the world continued. He did not want to sharpen the soft shadows into reality, let himself grow alert enough for the edges to return.

But finally he roused to the low murmur of conversation. He heard his name, he heard the brittleness of worry easing away from their voices.

"Do we dare say he's free of it?" Donnic said, voice just on the near side of audible. 

"We might," Aveline murmured. "The marks have been quiet. No fever, or chill." Her thumb smoothed over his knuckles.

"Maker," Donnic's voice was shaky. "Please." The last was barely a breath of a word, warm into Fenris' hair, and Fenris slept once more, like that, with the softness of his breath on his scalp.

He stayed still and quiet, drifting in and out, until Donnic stirred and let out a slow sigh that Fenris could feel as well as hear, where their bodies touched. He felt the urge to press back, but he could only savour the contact. "Alright," Donnic spoke softly, the word drawn out and reluctant, "I'll be off." He rose with slow care, sliding away but pausing a moment to rest one hand lightly over Fenris' sheet-covered shoulder before moving off altogether.

Donnic's absence felt colder to Fenris than the simple lack of body heat. He didn't like it. He shifted with a scratchy noise of protest, rolled towards Aveline's presence, and did not open his eyes.

He roused again, confoundingly alone in the bed, just as Donnic returned, footsteps at the doorway. This time he forced dry, gritty eyes just open enough to look. Donnic's damp hair was tidied, stubble shorn smooth, and he was dressed in all but his armour. Aveline had risen to meet him and Fenris watched Donnic pull her near. They shared a soft kiss, a tight embrace, curtain-dimmed morning light enough to see Donnic's tanned hand in contrast to the white nightshirt where he held her, and likewise Aveline's paler, freckled hand on his hip.

A faint warmth, too tired to kindle to arousal, nonetheless stirred quietly in Fenris at the sight. The two of them, their hands on each other, love in every line of the gesture. 

And they had brought him into that.

Something swelled in his chest, in his throat, grew tight a moment, heat behind his face as his eyes drifted closed again; it bloomed through the rest of him, a flow of warmth that swept everything into a soft, inviting tangle and then curled itself into a comfortable heap in his mind.

He faded again, almost pleasantly, for all that he'd have preferred to watch them for longer.

Then quiet but heavy footsteps came near; Donnic--and then there was a hand smoothing his shoulder, then the close sensation of someone leaning near… and a sudden warm, light pressure above his ear as Donnic pressed a kiss there. 

"You rest now, love," Donnic murmured at him.

The warm tangle turned over, seemed to stretch luxuriously, and when it sleepily settled again, it occupied somewhat more space.

Fenris didn't hear much more, though, only faintly aware of Aveline's "be safe," at Donnic's departure and her weight as she sat by him on the bed, and with a sigh of effort he curled towards her once more and slept.

***

Aveline felt Fenris burrow weakly against her with a hopefulness she knew she needed to keep in check. She was very sure she dared not cling to that feeling for long, but she couldn't help but be heartened that Fenris' semi-conscious instincts sought comfort from her instead of flight.

She looked down at him, sweat-matted hair mussed on the pillow, brown skin looking reassuringly healthy again in the morning light, not ashen like it had on the way home yesterday, or fever-flushed as it had been for long parts of the night. 

The memory of his skin under her hands, hot and smooth or taut and sweat-slicked, and the scent of him--of them, sweat and the musk of sex and semen--it was so vivid and jarring now. She felt her cheeks burn at the now ill-timed heat that began a warm swell at her core. It felt lewd, even predatory in the daylight, fully awake and sitting with him as though to see him through any mundane injury or illness. 

This wasn't mundane. She remembered it all, and though she also remembered watching him realize--feeling his fingers touch her with that affection--would _he_ recall? 

Should he? Would he be better off if he did not? She clenched her jaw, pressed her fingers over her eyes until the sudden prickled faded. 

She called on some of the calm she used on duty, though she could not reach the proper level of detachment sitting here for it to take full hold. Still, it helped to master herself for the meantime and the wait for whatever came next.

"Rest," she repeated Donnic's quiet request to Fenris' angular, slumbering shape, and gave in to the urge to smooth his sweat-matted hair down. That at least she might do within the bounds of friendship, as she had rarely in the past, watching over his recovery from a wound obtained in the field.

Which she supposed this was, after all. 

She left him asleep there to ready some food for later, to find new bed linens, and then at last to have a wash. 

As she ran the wet cloth over herself, rinsing sweat and other traces away, her mind drifted to more mundanities, like the unusual quantity of laundry they would deliver to the washerwoman this week, and so it was with a startle that she realize the door to the tiny bathing room, which she had left open to listen for movement, was suddenly occupied by a slowly blinking Fenris, still draped her own loose, and now quite stained, nightshirt. He leaned heavily on the doorframe, holding the cup from the nightstand in one hand.

She hadn't drawn herself a bath, had only used cloth and basin, was leaning nude over the washing stand to wring out her hair.

She felt herself blush--there was no way to control that, especially when Donnic finding her in the same state still prompted the reaction just as thoroughly even after all these years. Heat bloomed from ears on downward to her chest and over her breasts. That was normal, and she ignored it. "You're awake," she said, relieved. 

"You might call it that," Fenris muttered, rising the hand holding the cup to scrub his wrist against his eyes. His gaze was still exhausted but reassuringly alert, much more so than it had been all of this time since the warehouse. He said nothing else, only waited. He looked at her--observed her--from head to feet and up again, with eyes that widened and caught on her breasts, at the juncture of her thighs, but otherwise his face kept still. Her blush was still hot on her skin, but the self-consciousness did not bother her. It was a strange moment, suspended between what had passed and whatever would come next. 

Neither of them addressed any of it, but there was no shame when his eyes met hers, even if he looked away after a bare moment, eyes averting past her towards the tub.

Well, if he had not fled upon waking (or attempted to and collapsed halfway to the door, either), he yet seemed at a loss for having remained, and perhaps she was as well, as it came to saying much of use. But there were things to do before any of them needed to put anything into so many words.

"Here. Sit," she told him with a wave at the little stool by the wall, and he fairly collapsed onto it while she opened the spigot to fill the small tub. This much she had planned for, the fire was banked hot, and the water was ready. She filled it, the splashing startlingly loud. But the steam in the small room made the air humid and warm, and she always found that part comforting. 

Fenris blinked at the tub bemusedly all the while, and let her hover as he clumsily got in. She didn't miss the exhale of appreciation as he sank into the heat.

Once submerged, he swiped in a cursory way at his body, but did little else before just letting his head tip back and resting there. No matter, even a soak would surely do him good. But, "your hair," Aveline said. She reached halfway to touch, and paused. Fenris slanted his gaze at her, tired query in his eyes. "It's rather a mess now. May I?" She asked. 

A long moment, then a grunted assent, so she found the small towel Donnic used when he did this for her, or she for him, and cushioned the back of Fenris' neck on the side of the tub in the the same way. He closed his eyes as his head settled; the tub was small but deep, and only his bent knees and his chest above his collarbone were out of the water.

With the jug and basin Aveline collected some of the hot water and poured it over his hair, combing fingers carefully through it as it slicked down, finding the shape of his skull under her fingers as she poured a second and third time, combing through thick, wet locks. She caught the tip of one of his ears as she moved.

"Sorry," she murmured, sliding fingers down to the back of his skull.

He made a stiff noise in response, and she was unsure what it meant. Looking up made her heart sink. His hands were on the sides of the tub, gripping white-knuckled, and now that the splashing from her pouring had subsided she could hear the tension in his quick breathing.

"Fenris," she said pulling her hand back from his dripping hair. "I--" What had happened, what she'd done, she had no idea, nor how to repair her error, aside from ceasing this intimacy which she had pulled him into without nearly enough forethought.

"No. Don't stop," he said, the tone curt, bitten off and not at all matching his words. He inhaled as if to speak, didn't, tried again, as his shoulders tightened and she sat, at an utter loss.

She wished Donnic were here. He would've had the words for this.

Fenris found his own words again. "It isn't--I am unaccustomed to anyone--" his hands flared open before clamping again on the edge, strain of tendons visible in the grip, and his tattoos flared in a weak, stuttering crackle of defensive magic, shining up eerily through the water. "I was--he used to have me washed, so that I could be… shown off."

A sick anger came over her, but he continued before she could do more than draw breath.

"It was always cold." His voice, even so tired, was taut as his body, and she felt the weight her chest, locking up her throat. "This is--pleasant. Please." He fell silent, head tilting slightly. The tension in his shoulders did not relax at all, but after a moment he let out a careful breath, and his lyrium dimmed. 

She hesitated, not sure if she was able to believe him, clenched her teeth at the uneven sound of her own breathing, and did as he had not quite asked. "Yes. Alright," she said, a wobble in the word, tensing all over as she tried to stop the shaking of her hands.

Mercifully, the motions were ingrained enough that familiarity took over, and she found she could slide her fingers through his hair in a way that calmed her as much as she had wanted it to calm him.

***

Fenris sat and struggled to resurface past the deluge of remembered sensations that had closed over his head. The chill in him now was nothing to do with the draught's aftermath, and the revulsion in his gut at his own past slithered perilously close to the back of his throat before it could no longer surge past his rigid tension.

In spite of his inability to fully master his reaction, Aveline was doing as he asked. Her fingers were sliding once again through his hair, combing gently through the sodden locks of it.

It had taken a little time for the breathlessness to snap shut around him, the memories usually ignored to the best of his ability.

...Kneeling on bare tile with his head down, icy water dumped over him with no mind to warming it. Sharp fingers prodding and pulling at him as he was cleaned and _cleansed_ , by fellow slaves who cared nothing for his comfort, more usually the opposite, as he was a favourite over many of the rest. Skin scrubbed and scented oil rubbed on and in. Made ready to be displayed as Danarius' prized possession... 

He had vaguer, pain-wracked memories, some of his earliest, of being restrained for examination during recovery from the application of the lyrium, naked and shivering, limbs spread like a mounted insect, blood from the procedure scraped away from raw skin and an acrid burnt meat scent hanging in the air… the odor mingled with choking, cloying perfume while a figure loomed with clinical gaze and fondling hands that made his skin crawl and stomach turn, tracing his lyrium with fetishistic thoroughness. 

Danarius had been so very enamoured of his work.

Fenris took in a breath of warm, damp air scented with subtle lavender and mint, worked to calm his lyrium once again.

What was there of him not infected by his past? Aveline had tried to be kind, and then--this.

Further damage exposed, like part of the mouldering underside of a rotted log. Bared to the light and lifted away from where it had slowly festered for all of his existing memory. He'd pushed that over on his own, revealing some of what was there, because his desire for Aveline's touch had made it--not easy, but necessary, to explain. Above all she had to know she had not--could never--have been the cause of his reaction.

And yet it was an ambivalent thing, having spent years feeling the varyingly sympathetic or pitying looks of his friends. He knew they all had ideas about what had happened to him. But none of them made him dig it up. Even the ones most prone to prying--Hawke, Varric--had only rarely pressed him, and in their time together he had come to understand, deep within enough for it to actually feel true, that to all of them, even the blood mage and the abomination, he was not some charitably adopted former slave, he was a person, was himself.

Whatever that person was now, even with Danarius dead.

He'd found it easiest to simply speak little of it, though things had erupted when he'd been overcome by events. The rage and loathing that surfaced alongside his memories was not something that it pleased him to savour, but at times it burned its way out of him regardless.

This time, the bile had not burned free so much as seeped from him. He was too tired for anything more. Even the anxious speed of his heart could not beat back the exhaustion enough for fury to kindle, but out his past had come anyway, into the quiet room, where steam curled off the water's surface and--

A low melodic humming pulled his mind from one particular memory of being dragged from sleep, spilling half-conscious onto cold, wet stone tiles. The sound settled him back into his body as it was now. Aching and sore but warm, surrounded by heat and with strong, safe fingers working soap into his hair. 

The tune was nothing more than a tavern song, rather off key, as Aveline worked the soap to a lather. The lavender-mint scent drifted forward again, suddenly and viscerally recognizable as part of hers and of Donnic's, the same soap they used. 

Of course it was. He pressed his eyes closed, breathed in. 

What could possibly be farther from _then_ , than this.

The feel of fingers against his scalp was novel, warming where she pressed, leaving his scalp feeling sensitive and... pleasant. Very unlike when he quickly scrubbed it himself, which was with nothing more than cold water most times.

It was so easy to imagine her doing this for Donnic, or he for her. Slow care and warm hands and rising from the water, drops sliding down clean skin; they would dry off, stumble down the hall and sink together, warm and close, onto the bed...

He dozed off before he realized, then startled awake with a jerk and a splash, to still-warm but much cooler water around him. Aveline, wearing an open robe and brushing her hair, was sitting on the stool nearby.

He blinked at her, stared without the ability or even intention to stop himself. He looked at the darker orange of her still-damp hair and the white linen of the robe draped over pale, freckled skin. He could see the curve of her breast where it hung open and the muscled planes of her stomach, and a hint of dark curls below. 

The desire to touch and explore was neither sudden nor surprising, but having seen so much of her now--so much reality for his mind's eye--made it unfold with new detail and thoroughness, despite his current weakness weighing all of him down. Even with any possibility of arousal at arm's length, if not farther, she was still Aveline, she was still-- _we both would_ , she'd said. Such relief. 

Something he could have only dreamed of… now it was something real, that had happened, and something he could barely remember... and most of what he could was a twisted, debased mess of sensation and emotion. 

She was looking at him with a frown of concern now, tension at the corners of her mouth, her brows drawn together over eyes that evaluated him as she had countless times over the years after some injury. "I didn't want to wake you, but was afraid I'd have to once it cooled," she said. 

Fenris sat stiffly up, sloshing the water around him, the air chilly on the wet portions of his chest and back that emerged from the water. He ran an unsteady hand back over his damp hair. "Not the most ideal place for a nap," he said dryly. His fingertips were wrinkled from being submerged for so long.

The half smile she gave him still held more than a hint of worry in it as she rose to meet his clumsy climb out of the tub. That grated at him now, in a different way than any embarrassment he could muster from the night's ordeal. But after what he'd told her... the rawness of her awareness was also relief in its way. She knew more now why he was--why he couldn't--

He slipped and she caught him easily. Warm arms, and strong, supporting him as he swayed to a mostly upright position.

"Hold on a little longer," she said. "You need to eat."

He didn't expect to feel hungry, the prospect of nausea still seemed too near. The scent of stew solved the problem itself, meat and herbs made his mouth water all of a sudden. He found himself more than able to dig into the small bowl she served him, and some bread besides.

She left him to finish the last of it, and soon he heard the rustling of sheets and blankets from the bedroom. His eyelids and limbs were heavier every moment that passed and he twitched awake more than once as he clumsily prodded at the last remains in the bowl. He leaned on his arm a moment… and then next he knew, he was being tucked between fresh linens. The mess of the previous night was gone, cleaned away. Their bed was remade, cool and clean

He must have made a sound because she spoke, in a soft voice. "You were asleep on the table."

He felt a hand on his forehead, smoothing back his hair, where she had kissed him--before, at the start--all of that was a mess of blurry lust, most of the clear memories were just flashes of desperation and of relief. But that moment he recalled, just before he'd been overcome... touching her hair, and Donnic's breath against his neck.

He felt her adjust the covers again, the weight of them pleasant across his sore body; but as her footsteps retreated, he dug his fingers into the cloth, struggled with an abrupt need to push it all down and off, to get out of this clean bed, where all the mess of the previous night was no longer, leave this house and leave _them_ and spare them his--his damage, his temper, and the incomplete remainder of a man that he was.

He clenched his teeth weakly even though he could no longer raise his eyelids, futile urgency clotting up his throat, until sleep smeared it all into nothing.

 

***

Donnic's shift was one of the least eventful in recent memory, which on one hand was just as well--for he couldn't deny he was preoccupied--and on the other hand, the apparent desire of nearly everyone on his patrol to _behave_ for once did nothing whatsoever to distract him from his preoccupation. The hours passed free of gang clashes, assaults or brawls, crawling by all too slowly with only a few petty thefts to break the monotony as he tried not to think about what he'd left that morning.

When he had returned to the barracks for the shift change, he declined an offer to go out to drink with some of the others, enduring the usual ribbing about being a married homebody, despite the fact he just as often took them up on it.

Not tonight, though. He entered quietly, noted with some cautious relief that Fenris's gear was still present, and listened while he removed his boots. 

Familiar footsteps, and then Aveline appeared, hands behind her head to tie her hair. She brightened at the sight of him--and her worry seemed of a reassuringly mundane level, so things were going well enough here.

He took her outstretched hand and squeezed it, before she turned to let him tie off her hair. He'd gotten deft at this with years of practice and he plaited it a couple of times and tied the end. "How is he?" 

"Sleeping," she said, turning back to face him. "But he did eat."

Donnic nodded. Caressed her ears and cupped her jaw to draw her near for a kiss. She sighed afterwards, something unhappy in it as she leaned her forehead to his.

"He woke long enough for a bath," she started, her mouth flattening. "While he was in it he--" she shook her head, rolled her shoulders as she did when trying to bear up under troubling emotions. "Fell into a memory, I suppose. Of before, when he was still--" she grimaced. "He said he would be cleaned before Danarius would…show him off." 

Donnic's hands must have tightened because hers came up to gently pry them from her shoulders.

She squeezed his fingers in comfort. "I was washing his hair--he went so still, tight like he'd snap. He told me why, but he asked me to continue." She shook her head. "Perhaps I shouldn't have, I don't--" she sighed.

He turned his hands in hers, holding onto her now instead. "You did what he wanted, maybe that's the best path to follow." He was no expert in this; for the most part, all his experience was that of a guard intervening with or jailing someone for abusing another. While that was not as infrequent as he wished, it was tremendously different to seeing the effects of a Magister's particular abilities and efforts.

Noise from the bedroom drew both their attention and they fell silent to listen. Movement, footsteps.

"He's awake," Donnic murmured. 

They didn't intrude as Aveline finished the last of her preparations to leave, and Donnic took off his gear. Fenris appeared as Donnic was seated on the low bench by the door, pulling off his second boot. 

Fenris looked not altogether steady but he was upright without trouble, and alert. He'd gotten dressed in belted tunic and leggings, and stood in the bedroom door frame, leaning slightly out with an uncertain wariness.

"You look nearly well," Donnic said, not restraining his smile of relief, and couldn't help a glance at Aveline, found her gauging Fenris with narrowed protective eyes, evaluating his state. The worry at the corners of her mouth didn't vanish but it eased somewhat.

"I feel better," Fenris said. The words were short but not curt. And for all of Donnic's worst fears, even if Fenris was visibly self-conscious, slightly hunched, fingers tight on the door frame, he did not seem embarrassed or ashamed, which was a distinction Donnic was happy for. 

Fenris fixed his stare between them, at neither of them, took a short breath. "My thanks for… your aid." The words were just a simple quiet statement, but with an air of conclusion to it.

Donnic didn't let the cold blow of unreasonable disappointment reach his expression--he had no right to that feeling, for the loss of something he had absolutely not been granted.

Aveline was shaking her head, dismissing the need for gratitude. "Of course," she said firmly. 

Donnic nodded, feeling his hands tighten on his knees at the memory of cold skin and shallow breathing. The mess of incoherent painful begging was still a wrench to recall, still made him want to wrap Fenris up tight, hold him close and safe. He wondered again, as he had throughout the day, what Fenris remembered of it all. 

"What you said, at the start. You both--" The words stopped and didn't continue, and Fenris' gaze twitched between the two of them, then fixed darkly to the side, not quite a glare but something determinedly unhappy at addressing that, and it made Donnic's chest feel hollow.

Silence hung, a long moment. He didn't want--he'd never expected, and only even hoped in flights of fancy. But to say the words that would set it aside, once and for all… it was selfish but he hadn't wanted that finality. He shifted where he sat, forced himself to speak. "Ah, well. That's been true for… a long while," he admitted. "We never thought..." He stifled a sigh. "Doesn't need to change anything," he spoke as firmly as he could, as reassuring as he could. "Didn't for us before. Needn't for you now," he finished, and struggled to keep an even expression even as his voice roughened at the last couple of words. Aveline took up the thread.

"You're not one for--we didn't want it to burden you," she said simply, voice quiet. 

A peculiar pained look came over Fenris, almost amused, mouth stretching in a grimace that faded quickly away. "Indeed. It... won't," he said, tight and stilted. "It won't," he repeated more quietly, half to himself, but insistent. He finally looked at Aveline properly again, at Donnic, a sharper, more painful version of the searching stare he'd had at the beginning of the draught's ordeal, before his mind had been submerged under the surface of its effects. His gaze turned inward a moment, and then he shook his head, quick and hard, shoulders twitched like an abortive shudder. 

Donnic swallowed, he hoped subtly. "Nothing needs to change," he repeated, hoping they could make it true, that Fenris wouldn't come away from this forever leery or distant towards them. Or worse. "Only that... now you know." 

Fenris nodded almost absently then squared his shoulders and there was relief in his face. "I'll take my leave," he said at last. 

Well. There was the line between before and forward. So, forward. They'd all find their feet soon enough, surely. Surely.

Meanwhile, he'd do best to act like they already had.

Donnic leaned back and crossed his arms, regarding Fenris with an eye to the physical state of him. "Expect you can make it back, as you are?" he asked seriously, and was unsurprised at the firm nod.

"If you're _certain_ ," Aveline said dubiously. "But take Donnic with you," she added in a stern voice that Donnic had heard so many times ordering injured guardsmen home with a friend, or any of Hawke's entourage at the Hanged Man that she deemed ought still to be resting after injury, if she was not free herself to accompany them. Some of the tension in Fenris' bearing evaporated even as his eyes narrowed disgruntledly. "Fine," he growled, but this was familiar grumbling. Donnic smiled at her fondly.

She gave the two of them a mulish look.

Some of what had twisted tight in Donnic's chest eased at this whole exchange. _Nothing needs to change._

There'd never be more; he only wanted to keep this.

"Well. Good. Now, I have a half-again shift today, afterwards," Aveline reminded Donnic, though it was her standard for when she had administrative duties to catch up on. 

"Be safe," he murmured as she leaned down to kiss him where he sat on the bench. She gave Fenris a last critical, post-injury once-over, which he bore with a flat look.

They both watched her go, watched the heavy door close. Neither moved, and then Donnic felt his stomach demand what it had been for the last few hours and finally yanked off his boot.

He looked back at Fenris, trying to free himself of the last day or so. It seemed best to begin now. "I'm fair starved. Would you join me for a bit of something first?" he asked. Fenris blinked, then nodded without a word, and trailed after him as he went to the kitchen. 

For all that nothing needed to change, Fenris had never accepted any invitation to eat here before. 

Whatever the import of that, Donnic was glad he could do this much before Fenris returned to that mansion. He was no great cook but his experience with Fenris' pantry at the mansion was mostly wine, dried meat and hard bread and cheese, except on the day Varric's arranged deliveries of fresh produce arrived. Donnic could do a little better than that.

***

Fenris watched Donnic prepare the meal while his intense restlessness to leave grappled with the longing to remain.

But the longer he sat the easier it was. As if he could draw a curtain over the previous night and day, and just let now be now.

This felt peculiarly... usual, even though he had never had an actual meal here before, having declined it repeatedly over the years--though they kept inviting, on holidays or seemingly random occasions. His consistency in declining had never deterred them, and every few months they would offer again. And though new hindsight made it much more apparent _why_ , he had no memory of feeling anything more than awkwardly touched by the offer, disinclined as he always was to attend any large gatherings not taking place in a tavern.

His time spent with the two of them accounted for a great many hours of his life in Kirkwall. A constant, though it had not felt like that at first.

Nothing had felt constant, at first. Nothing had, truly, for most of his time here, even once he'd allowed himself to accept things _could_ be like that. All of it had been too near to that edge of his past overlapping his present and ending it all.

But Danarius had died with Hawke's sword in gut, after a blow from Aveline's shield, and then Fenris' fist through his chest, even if had taken a period of formless disbelief before that had entirely felt real.

All of a sudden, he had not had to see everything as fleeting, as constantly ready to be torn from him, nor had to lie, some sleepless nights, adrift between the void of his past and the threat of his future.

When the threat had gone, there had appeared possibilities.

But not this. Never this.

Donnic rolled back his sleeves to reveal the dark hair on his forearms and Fenris watched him prepare the meal, his big, calloused hand using a knife to deftly reduce potatoes and onions to small, even bits. He handled a deck of cards just as easily. Fenris had stared the first time he'd seen Donnic pull off a fancy shuffling technique he hadn't yet seen, not even from Varric.

His grip was sure. Fenris knew that even better now than any amount of sparring had taught him.

 _Donnic's hand open across his lower back, pressing him close, warm oil slicked palm closing around him, granting relief that made him writhe--_ That memory was brief, clear pleasure. 

Fenris took a silent breath at the shiver of whetted heat that ran across his skin, under the lyrium-- _that_ stayed quiescent now, where there was nothing that put him on edge. 

That was a realization that calmed some of the remaining urge in him to get away. Even with this contradiction now before him, the strange weight of knowing how the two of them felt despite his… _everything_ \--he was calm where he sat on the bench at the table, where his view of the meal preparation was now of Donnic paring a slightly wrinkled couple of apples into pieces and tossing them into a skillet with the rest. A bowl of seasoning was shaken over it all.

He kept quiet, which suited Fenris, and anyway the sounds of cooking did plenty to fill the silence. The aroma suffused the air, mild spices and sweet apple and onion, and Fenris' entire body responded eagerly to that. He was very, very hungry, all of him sluggish and slow, aches and fatigue in need of fuel to recover with.

Two large slabs of sliced ham went on last with and Donnic made a satisfied noise at the sizzle. He glanced at Fenris with a half grin when it was done and slid them onto separate plates.

He set one down before Fenris, a heaping bowl of the fried hash in between them. A pot of mustard, plate of butter, and a loaf of bread to the side. A pitcher of water and two cups. "Serah Fenris," Donnic gestured mock-formally with that grin still in his eyes, as he did at times when he was the one providing the wine for their card games, and Fenris chuckled and raised an amused eyebrow at him as he took up his utensils.

Donnic ate with the voracious, determined gusto of a man who'd been busy for a long day. Fenris picked at his food in comparison, small bites savoured for longer, but he enjoyed it.

Perhaps with Aveline this might have quickly felt strange. When she'd fed him she had let him be while she had gone to change the bed linens. For all their shared time at Hawke's side, it was rarely the two of them at leisure that wasn't also over a campfire, and so it had felt quite natural that way, just as much as her usual assessing stares to check his well-being before moving off to keep watch.

He and Donnic had years of shared contemplative silence--as well as conversation--and over a proper meal was not quite like over cards, but near enough for Fenris to have Donnic's eyes on him without it chafing, even if Fenris found his shoulder's tighten somewhat whenever Donnic failed to hide his worry. Fenris could not help it, any more than he understood that Donnic could help being worried.

Maybe what they'd said was true. Aside their reasonable measure of concern, Fenris felt very little different in their gazes; maybe nothing much would change. 

Nothing should. Nothing _could_ , he insisted to himself, no matter the few vivid memories of them remaining from this ordeal that he knew he would hold close to his heart.

It was for the best.

***

Night had nearly fallen when they left the row house and headed for the mansion. Donnic knew Fenris preferred that. Even after the years of skulking around Hightown had made him somewhat quietly infamous as the dangerous squatter, that same reputation had established that the danger he posed was to brigands or thieves and other assorted people who intended harm. Thus even after the administrative status of the property had settled into convenient limbo, the only complaints ever levied about it were for the unkempt appearance. In response to which Varric had had painters come yearly to attend to the facade, and thus most of wealthy neighbours were appeased.

The evening's chill was sharp, and though Fenris had treated Donnic to a look of incredulity at the offer of boots--not that Donnic was sure either his or Aveline's extra pair would fit--he had begrudgingly accepted a coat over his tunic. The blue was an unusual shade on him, Donnic quite liked it, though he certainly didn't say as much. A little later, after the first buffet of icy wind outside, Fenris grumpily snatched up the extra woollen scarf Donnic offered him as well. The grey, fuzzy thing was a well-worn soft one, and Fenris fairly flung it around his neck and hunched into it with visible relief. 

Soon the mansion loomed in the dark, and Fenris struggled briefly with forcing open the heavy door, which he would not have done on any other day. Donnic watched and restrained the urge to help, only kept hold of the pack he'd carried here with Fenris' armour. He had the sword slung over his other shoulder, the weight dragging at him with each step. It had been telling that Fenris had watched him pick the pack and weapon up with nothing more than a slightly sour expression, and indeed the walk to the mansion had been less of Fenris-typical stalking or slinking, more of a stolid, dogged march. But they'd made it, and now Fenris flung himself against the dark wood a last time until it swung inward to an unlit foyer.

Donnic slid in behind Fenris, watched him clumsily light a half-melted candlestick, stuck askew in a wax-engulfed holder, and when he wasn't immediately dismissed, followed Fenris the rest of the way in, to the chamber where he made his living space. Silent feline shapes melted out of the dark, welcoming them back to the mansion, a grey tom and two half-grown black kittens darting ahead of Fenris into the room. 

There was a covered basket of food on one of the benches, which Donnic recognized. Not the produce Varric periodically sent, but delivered by that shy slip of an elf girl that Hawke employed.

Fenris eyed it incuriously, though he sat heavily down next to it, and then pulled off the note pinned to the lid to squint at it.

He stared tiredly for some long seconds, blinked and then held it out to Donnic with a sigh. "Please," he muttered, dragging the muffler off his neck and slouching, head down, his hands buried in the grey wool, the oversized shirt hanging off him. 

Donnic read aloud, "Thank you for throwing him off the balcony. I asked Orana to make some of those apple biscuits you like." Donnic remembered what Aveline had told him of the discovery of the crate. He bent to replace the note on the cover. "Sounds like Anders is well."

Fenris snorted, but Donnic saw him nod once, slowly.

Donnic unslung the sword and set it aside where Fenris usually left it, and put the pack with his armour in it on the floor nearby.

Fenris made no sign of shifting from the bench before the massive hearth, which was dark and cold. Fenris sat with elbows on his knees, head sagging and still breathing much harder than normal from the effort of the walk over.

Donnic had tended the fire here often enough that it didn't feel like overstepping to do so now, even if Fenris wasn't at present contemplating a hand of cards.

He scraped away far too much ash and settled kindling and small pieces of firewood in place, lighting and feeding the new fire until it was self-sustaining, and settled the longer-burning logs on top.

The fire lit the room warmly, and the heat would follow soon, along with a number of the cats.

"Thank you," Fenris' voice was low.

"Of course," Donnic replied. "Can I do anything else?" he half hoped for any minor chore, but Fenris shook his head slowly. "Alright." he made reluctantly for the door towards the foyer. "Cards this week," he said, not quite daring to make it a question, in case--but the reply was a heavy nod.

"Yes." The answer was as easily given as ever.

"Until then," he said, and left him there with a long backward glance.

The air felt colder on the walk back. Arriving home, Donnic paused inside the door, and sighed at how much more empty the night-dark house felt in the absence of not one, but two that he wished were here.

 

***

At Donnic's departure Fenris exhaled slowly. The part of him that had been tiredly waiting for simple solitude at last relaxed, and he stared at the freshly built fire and appreciated the warmth on his face along with that relief. Pressure against his leg made him glance down. One of the black kittens was rubbing its cheek against him. It arched against his hand when he reached down, then darted off to wrestle with its sibling. 

He was comfortable, here where he'd made his dwelling. And at the same time... he missed them, in a way more acute than he'd ever felt after parting with either of them before. He closed his eyes, felt the firelight against and through the lids.

It was not physically painful; the ravenous pressure of the draught's effect had faded, and good riddance to it--Now he could breath, feel, think, at his own pace--and yet during that time it seemed his body had so rapidly adjusted to the flanking warmth of two others that now he felt the lack of them more keenly than he could've anticipated. 

Still, he was glad for the solitude. Even on days with far less…. upheaval, he needed sometimes to retreat from any company at all. The days he could not bring himself to be around most anyone, the days he wanted only quiet, his fire, or, more lately, a new confounding book to puzzle through from the small stack his friends kept adding to. 

Yet another reason nothing must change, he thought. What could he bring to anyone when there were those days that he simply needed to be alone? 

The two were so loving, he thought, fingers rising to his face, to the place over his ear, over his brow, where they'd kissed him. They took such care of each other. They fit together perfectly, had made their home together, living upon and around and with each other.

If he had ever been able to live like that, it had been erased with his memory. 

Household life as he knew it… Had been waiting in a bare room for Danarius to summon him, sleeping when he could. Had been enduring Hadriana's petty abuses and pettier orders, or Danarius' ongoing… tests. Had been holding serving trays and fetching food and drink for guests on the days when it had amused Danarius or one of his guests to be served by him, for the wolf to be the dog. Had been standing for hours against a wall during social visits or political meetings as Danarius' leashed beast, tattoos burning all the while. 

He banished the snarl that had settled on his face with an effort, closed his eyes to recall instead the feeling of Aveline's hands moving through his hair, of Donnic's arms holding him up, holding him close. 

_Nothing needs to change._

For a moment he felt utterly adrift, and he found himself swallowing painfully. He shook his head as hard as he could, teeth clenched, and dropped the scarf he'd been clutching to mash the heels of his hands against his eyes until his uneven breathing steadied. 

He reached down, retrieved the length of knitted wool, stared at the grey flecked with darker grey. His eye caught on the orange of a flower stitched on in broad woolen lines one end, realized that while the coat he wore was Donnic's, this was surely Aveline's. 

_Copper marigolds_. With a few rapid motions he balled it up, then yanked the coat off himself and pushed both items into the pack that still held his armour. After the first shove, he inhaled sharply, then rummaged more carefully, tucking the two items carefully below without snagging or tearing either on any sharp edges. 

Standing up after that made his head swim. He went unsteadily to his bed, dragged the topmost blankets from the tangled pile and brought them back to the fireplace. He sank down onto them it to lie there, unsleeping but too tired to do anything more than listen to the warm sound of the burning wood and let the heat sink into his skin.

***

 

"Do tell, Rivaini," Varric said to Isabela, chin attentively in hand. "Who is it about this time?"

"Must you encourage her?" Aveline sighed, mostly because she was supposed to, and Isabela grinned in anticipation.

"When we have drinks!" she declared, leaning back to see if they were on the way.

They weren't playing Wicked Grace tonight and so Aveline was here with the rest at the Hanged Man when Fenris arrived. He came through the door, moving as warily as ever, his usual serious expression not shifting much, though the way his eyes caught on her then twitched away was new. It pained her a little, but it was not that surprising. Fenris was not given much to subtlety; he was either prone to fully speak his mind or remain altogether silent on any given matter, so she had wondered how he might weather the return to 'normal'. 

Hearteningly, he sat across from her with no hesitation, rolled his eyes a little at Isabela's flirty leaning against him, and nodded at Hawke. He frowned at Anders, eyed him assessingly for a few seconds then looked away again to raised a hand at Varric's geeting.

"There you are! Just in time for drinks." Varric craned his neck. "Come on, Daisy!" he yelled across the tavern, and Aveline looked past Fenris toward Merrill's slow approach. She was struggling with too many filled flagons and Isabela stood up to rescue the terrible ale from ending up on the floor as Merrill reached them, and drinks were passed around.

Fenris took his drink from Isabela, ignored Merrill as usual, and then listened with the rest of them when Isabela began regaling the table with the newest friend-fiction plot she had imagined. Fenris held the flagon in both hands before him, head cocked and eyes unfocused, attentive to Isabela's ridiculous plot. Aveline shook her head and sighed at intervals, narrowing her eyes with feigned annoyance at the winks Isabela sent her way, but as this tale wasn't about her and Donnic, she was content. And it wasn't _that_ bad. She'd certainly read worse.

Merrill's gasps and giggles brought out the happy lines on Varric's face, and Hawke was leaning on her hand, grinning. Anders was looking wan but amused as the lurid descriptions unfolded while his pen scratched intermittently at yet another draft of his manifesto, and Aveline most definitely caught Fenris' mouth quirking with humour now and then at Isabela's flight of explicit fancy.

Then, a good few minutes into the tale, his eyes met hers and the humour faded, his mouth tightening fractionally. She offered a smile to share in the moment's entertainment. He stared at her, then finally nodded politely, in a way so impersonal that Aveline had to restrain the cold splash of chagrin before it showed on her face, and force down again all the worst worries she still had about the aftermath of that night.

It had only been two days, and she was somewhat surprised to see him out and about at all, and not still holed up at the mansion recovering mentally, if not physically. He was a man who valued his solitude after all. He looked a sight better than last time, at least, steady and alert, no particular evidence remained of that night. If he was standoffish...

 _It will take him time to get past it_ , she insisted to herself. _Leave him be._

Then, "You look well, Fenris," Anders remarked, and Aveline sighed silently. 

Fenris stared at the mage, eyes narrowed. "You don't. What of it." And he was right. Anders still looked nearly as bone-tired as Fenris had two days ago. Hawke's arm slid across his back. He pushed himself straighter up on his elbows, closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over them.

"Yes, well," he sighed. A self-conscious flush brought some needed colour to his face, though the mortified look was less flattering. The unwanted question occurred to Aveline again, as it had since then; how had the draught affected Justice? She shifted uncomfortably. Anders kept his voice low, pitched for the four of them only, "We know what it did to _me_. I was concerned about what it might have done to you. Did you suffer any effects? Because of the, ah, markings…?" The mage trailed off, and seemed to be trying to pretend a detached, scholarly kind of interest, even as Fenris snorted at _concerned_ , but Aveline didn't miss the frown and the up and down glance at Fenris, just as Fenris had looked at Anders before. 

It was rare when the pair evinced any amount of even grudging concern for the other, and Aveline felt a pang at the flicker of fondness on Hawke's face. Aveline had only grown less sure over time about who or what Anders even was anymore, and watching Hawke cope with it was difficult, never mind her endless attempts keep the peace among the companions she loved.

Fenris and Anders were not friends. Even after all these years no one could even say they got along. And yet. Comrades, of a sort, for Hawke. 

Still, Anders' question now was not perfectly timed. Fenris just looked at him, staying silent for a jarringly long stretch of Isabela's description of a complicated mistaken-identity brothel encounter, his expression entirely closed. Then he said, voice as flat as his expression, "It was unpleasant. But it passed." 

The twitch in his jaw and the way his hands tightened on his drink made something in Aveline shift with a weighty roil of guilt. She swallowed, glad that none of them had any reason to be looking her way. She maintained her outward calm with an effort.

Fenris' tone didn't invite more questions, and he did not so much as glance at Aveline. She stopped herself frowning much, or looking down at her hands where they had curled in on themselves on the table before her.

Anders nodded, a conflict of resignation and something darker on his face, then just said, "Well. Good. And, thank you."

Fenris grunted. "I've seen it used to torture. Be thankful you weren't without assistance." 

Anders' flush returned, and he nodded tiredly and seemed content to leave it there. Hawke's arm slid into his, and she pressed her cheek to his shoulder, tilted her head to say something to him alone, which made him shake his head and lean away. Hawke kept a hand curled over the inside of his elbow though, and this time Anders covered it with his other hand, then hunched over his writing once more.

At the other end of the table, Isabela and Varric suddenly roared with laughter, and Aveline startled, and turned with the rest turned to see Merrill's eyes wide and a hand over her mouth. 

"But--whatever happened to the cheese?" she gasped, and dissolved into giggles.

"I missed that last part, Isabela," Hawke called out, slinging her arm properly around Anders now, and hugging him close. He seemed to resist, then closed his eyes and sank against her with visible relief. Aveline found Fenris looking at her across the table, and while the very familiar pang was stronger than it ever had been, she found it was only a little harder than it had been to smile, friendly and usual.

Fenris looked back, mouth stiff. He stared a moment then gave another small nod, a little less stiff, and… well. 

Not back to normal. Maybe back towards it.

 

***

Donnic gathered the cards, reforming the deck neatly and putting it back in its box. Fenris leaned back and stretched, then eyed Donnic with a bit of a sulk over the rim of his third wine glass. Donnic's was set aside, his one glass long finished and his bowl of ginger cookies reduced to crumbs. His bluff had been very good, Fenris' almost sure win overturned at the last moment, and he glowered without heat as Donnic rose. The grey tom jumped up to occupy the warm spot he left behind.

"Gracious winner tonight. Been taking hints from Aveline, have you?" Donnic‘s teasing was old and familiar. 

Fenris laughed, ungraciousness abandoned. "She remains my superior on that front, now and forevermore I expect," he said. Aveline had creased a whole hand of cards in her fist on her most recent attempt to play with them, and been surly for the rest of the evening. "A good game, my friend."

"If I hadn't the early shift I'd offer you the chance to even the score again," Donnic said regretfully. "But I have patrol and I'll wager you will be traveling nearly as early."

Indeed; Fenris had already readied his pack. Aveline had requested Hawke's help with removing a base of slavers on the Wounded Coast, and they left tomorrow. "Yes, just after first light." 

Donnic was pulling his ridiculous winter hat on, fur trim and ear flaps framing his face, and Fenris chuckled quietly at the sight. The hat had been a gift from Aveline, the felt-lined plaidweave a strident orange. Donnic's eyes glinted with his own amusement as he pulled on thick gloves. "I'll be off. If you lot get back as planned, you'll get your rematch before the week is out." He shrugged into his coat. "Be safe," he said, then blinked at his own words, and Fenris went still, mouth half-opening before his voice caught on the lack of response. 

It had been nearly two months. Things had returned to being normal almost all the time... except for the times that they were not, like now, when Fenris heard in those words the same casually solid affection that was always there whenever Donnic and Aveline said them to one another.

Donnic had never said that to Fenris before. They always treated any trip beyond the walls as a foregone success, at least in terms of everyone's safety, no matter how unrealistic that was, given blood mages, mines with dragons hanging about, and pockets of lurking tal'vashoth or highwaymen.

Fenris had come to find, after a few weeks had put the night of the draught well behind them, that acting just as before was not so difficult as long as he could keep to old habits and generally behave as though it had not happened at all, just as Donnic had promised, and the longer ago the entire ordeal got, the easier it became. Donnic and Aveline had seemed to be of the same mind. And soon enough the little slips grew farther apart, the flashes of worry and the slight lingering of a look here or there, and Fenris could pretend, much of the time, that nothing had happened at all.

If his thoughts wandered when he was alone, well, the pain of that was the merest of additions to the other things that lingered to plague his worst nights.

But it was moments like this, moments that hadn't happened before, that made Fenris stumble.

Donnic tilted his head, silently acknowledging his mistake, but then just met Fenris' eyes for an earnest moment and gave a faint shrug before he looked down to button his coat. He wasn't going to take back or hedge those words.

Emotion washed through Fenris in a mess that made him unsteady enough to be glad he was still sitting down. "I'll... certainly try," he finally managed, surprise embarrassingly audible in his voice. He took a breath, forced himself not to avoid Donnic's slightly wary eyes, when he'd fastened the last button and looked up. 

"Well. Good," was all Donnic said, slow and matter-of-fact. He left with a wave and Fenris sat back, his confusion solidifying into a brief angry frown at his own reaction. 

He'd thought it under control, aside his rather miserable nighttime indulgences. But even just a kind wish threw him off. How... _idiotic_. As if Donnic didn't normally care for his safety. It went without saying.

And still it felt altogether different that he'd said it. Said _that_.

Fenris shook himself and growled. He put aside his glass, the bowl, the card box, and retrieved the pile of blankets he'd dragged to one side before Donnic arrived, in a rather pointless attempt at tidying the room. He dumped them back where they had been before the hearth, and got on with preparing the rest of his gear. 

If he was meant to be safe, he had armour to repair.

Some time later, the grey tom had wandered away to hunt in some other part of the mansion, his gear was ready, his eyelids were heavy, and he dropped onto his blankets with the oil close at hand.

He pretended, he acted as though everything was _normal_ , because--he sighed at the memory of Donnic's earlier triumphant expression at the conclusion of their last round, and Aveline's confident readiness today when she'd laid out her request to Hawke--because it had to be. Had to.

But it certainly wasn't.

And the nights like this, when he took himself in hand alone, oil shining on his palm and his cock in the light of the fire, well. If he closed his eyes and welcomed back the memory of Donnic's hands on him, fingers spread across his belly, large hand curled around his thigh, if he breathed in and pretended that Aveline's remembered scent was coming to him again from her pillow, from her skin, pretended he could feel the warm swell of her breast, then drifted past his memories so that he imagined tasting their skin, imagined Donnic's cock hard alongside his own, imagined his fingers sliding deep into slick softness--

...If only in all those thoughts he was not nearly immobile with weakness, mind's eye seeing himself only in that exhausted, addled state…

If only he didn't come each time, chilly and bitter after the fact even with the hearth only feet away. He wiped himself clean and waited for the sensation of the fire's heat to turn warm again.

_Nothing has to change._

***

Aveline was dressed for sleep and curled on the divan when Donnic returned, sipping tea over Varric's latest volume of Hard in Hightown and shaking her head and debating whether or not to offer her opinion (again) on the blatant dramatization (particular emphasis on _drama_ ) of city law and guard procedure. It hadn't worked so far, but it rather pained her to let it pass without comment.

Icy air curled around her and cut right through her robe. "Maker, close the door!!" She shrank away from the gust of winter wind that accompanied her husband.

"You aren't dressed for the weather, love," he said with a chuckle as he removed his outerwear. After that, she heard him detour to where his house robe was hanging over a kitchen chair from earlier in the day. Her own was hung neatly up, as it should be, but his was very welcome when he draped it around her shoulders. She looked up and he kissed her before he wandered off to make his own tea.

It was one of their rare full nights together. They'd have all the hours until morning.

He joined her on the divan, hot mug held in both hands, and closed his eyes while she tsked and snorted over goings-on in the novel. She read choice passages aloud for him, complete with her criticisms, and he laughed, his weight heavy and warm against her side.

When she'd set her own mug down and not picked it up again for a good few pages, he leaned across her to put his own beside it, and as he sat back she closed the book and leaned her head to one side in invitation. He hmmed and kissed her neck lightly, day's stubble rough and pleasant. "Shall we criticize the rest another time?" he asked, his breath warm against her skin and stirring her to the soft beginning of arousal.

"It will keep," she agreed with a smile. She put the book aside as well and found his hand as he lifted his mouth to hers, sliding her fingers between his for a tight squeeze before she put his hand on her belly and opened under his kiss.

Warm, warm, no traces of the chill outside anymore, and he left her mouth to kiss her throat again. His hand played nearly idly, keeping to the outside of her shirt to palm at her breast, the heat of his hand seeping rapidly through the thin cloth and into her skin. He circled his thumb over her nipple as it firmed, and smiled against her skin when she arched a little to press back. She smiled as well, shifted her hips in an invitation he would recognize.

He soon moved to the floor, went to his knees between her thighs, her nightshirt pushing up as he leaned in, hands braced on the cushion. She found his belt with both hands, pulled him close until they were pressed together to carry on kissing. Slow--slow, for they had all the time they could need, and the feel of him there, the rougher brush of his trousers against the skin of her thighs, the solidity of his back when she slid her hands around him and up over his shirt, and the insistent warmth of his mouth… she'd been growing sleepy before he'd arrived home, and now arousal mingled through it, languid but eager. With her legs spread and Donnic between them she was aware in a lovely way of the weight and wetness of her sex as it became a ready swell, just waiting for the first touch.

He didn't though, not there, and she had no intention of urging him to quite yet. She pulled and he leaned himself flat against her, mouth at her throat and both hands rising to knead at her still unbared breasts, the friction of the warmed cloth wonderful and frustrating at once. 

While he did this, she knew he'd be happiest undeterred and undistracted, as much as she enjoyed feeling the weight of his cock in her hands. She left his belt buckle alone, even when he drew back enough for her to have reached for it, and indulged in stroking through his hair instead. Always a decadent sensation, thick and soft between her fingers, and then easy as it always was to guide him when he'd had his fill of self-imposed temptation and at last pushed her nightshirt up. He gathered the soft, thin cloth above her breasts with one hand and sighed happily at what he'd uncovered.

"Ah, love," he breathed. "How did I deserve you." 

"I might ask the same," she murmured as she felt the bloom of heat on her skin, a fresh blush at his words countering the cool air. It gathered into concentrated pleasure as he cupped one breast and covered her nipple with his mouth, flat pressure of his tongue dragging over it, and then he sucked and the tight, bright pleasure of that made her arch against him in pure reaction. His free hand covered her other breast, squeezed and rubbed with the rougher touch she loved, the warm friction of his palm on her skin, the grip of his fingers as eager as his mouth, and such a contrast with the wet heat. 

Her hands tightened in his hair, holding him there. And there he was happy to remain, even while the heat between her legs thickened, and each slight brush of his cloth-covered erection against her as he shifted made the throb of her pulse hungrier, until she gave in. 

She let go of him with one hand, slid it down to touch herself, slipping fingers effortlessly between the folds to stroke and appease the edge of her arousal--no deeper. She wanted more, but she wanted it from him. "Donnic," she said, voice a little tighter than before, tugged at his hair, and he lifted his mouth from her breast and simply trailed downwards, letting go of the nightshirt in favour of being able to keep a hand on one breast, so she withdrew her fingers, slick and cool in the air, to hold it herself, so that she could still see him and what he was going to do.

This was something she loved now, though it had taken some time back after they'd first married, from him enthusiastically pleasuring her under her shirt or the bedcovers, to her bashfully squeezing her eyes shut after she first agreed he could lay her bare, to peeking and discovering just how much she enjoyed looking. That was long past. She loved to watch him do this.

His eyes were closed, concentrating, going by the feel as his mouth kissed down past her belly button, nibbled ticklishly at the springy red curls, until the nibble became a tease over her clitoris that made her shiver and sigh and open her thighs wider, spreading so that cool air drifted over wet and ready labia, sudden contrast that always made her feel particularly wanton. 

And his hand left her breast to slide down to her thigh and beneath, joining the other to lift her a little, and her hand did clench in his hair then as he slid his tongue slow and flat over her, pressed in, licking deep stripes of wet, warm pressure.

This was not at all a new thing they were doing, it was a familiar and comfortable rhythm, though always a bit novel in its own way, for the rarity of having the time to spare. Because though they certainly could and did do this quickly, against the table with one leg over his shoulder and her elbow shaking to hold her up while her free hand held his head against her, that sometimes was barely more than an exercise, no time to slow down, just Donnic's familiarity with her body and her need for him reasserted. Or her in turn, when she filled her mouth with him and he stroked shakily at her hair and her ears until he shuddered above her. The moments of intimacy taken speedily when there was really no time to linger.

Tonight there was, and he made love with his mouth as slow as he liked best, bending one thigh up to open her more to him, pressing his fingers into her skin as his tongue stroked deep. There was a distant coolness hardening her nipples as sweat on her chest chilled the air drifting over her. 

"More?" he murmured against her, lips moving against her clitoris again, and he kissed at it, sliding one arm under her hips. 

She breathed a not-quite-word of encouragement, let go her shirt to hold her knee back herself, and then sighed luxuriously as two large fingers slid painstakingly in. Fingertips stroking her outer lips smooth and slow, dipping deeper at last to relieve her hungry desire for part of him inside her. He was quiet, mouth rather more occupied than when he used thumb instead, but she could feel the slight vibration of the hum in his throat that replaced his soft words.

Her mind spun free as it often did on the rise to orgasm, flashes of desire she couldn't control sliding in along with the reality of Donnic's mouth and his fingers. 

Where would Fenris fit in this, would he tuck against her side and hold her shirt up, have her breasts where he could enjoy them--he had seemed to, hadn't he? Could he take Donnic's place, his mouth on her, learn her rhythm there or perhaps with his fingers instead, the two of them--one task for each, and then they could--each other--

She came under Donnic's mouth and around his fingers, taut from the pleasure for long seconds and feeling warm, wet kisses on her inner thighs as his fingers slid not quite out of her, gently sliding along her vulva and soothing her back down. He hummed quietly against her stomach, wet all around his mouth. "Warmed up at all, love?"

She laughed helplessly, and her voice gave away the chagrin she felt about where her thoughts had gone. It had happened often enough now for them both to recognize it.

"Ah, it was like that," he said, and gave her stomach a last gentle, sympathetic kiss. He gave a cursory wipe to his hand and his mouth and settled back alongside her on the divan. She curled towards him and he pulled the edge of the robe around to warm her again. 

"I'm sorry," she told him.

"No," he murmured against her hair. "I'd... just as soon share your thoughts when it happens. So what does that make me?" His voice was low and guilty. She shook her head against him but didn't have an answer, and he wrapped his arms around her.

To have a fantasy of Fenris sometimes accompany their lovemaking had once seemed merely indulgent. Rather silly and some only mild degree of inappropriate. All for play, no harm to anyone. Now they dared not mention it, even to pretend, the wrongness was as amplified as his imaginary presence was, all while his absence was a terribly noticeable lack. Before, they had not had any physical memory lingering between them to miss. Now they remembered too much, wanted what they shouldn't.

Donnic tightened his embrace a moment. "Let's go to bed." The words were barely audible, mostly heat against her scalp. He rose and she let him help her stand. Any of his arousal from their earlier activity wasn't apparent when they stood, but when they passed through the door to their room, she shouldered him to the wall and dragged her palm against his trousers, seeking and relieved to feel his erection had not entirely subsided. He exhaled his surprise, wrapped his arms back around her and moved against her hand, slightly at first, the motion tipping into truly aroused intent as he hardened to full length. He grunted in discomfort and moved a hand to open his belt. 

She left his robe on the floor, threw her shirt on top of it as he stepped free of his trousers, and then when he'd pulled his own shirt off, she pushed him down on the bed. His hands held her waist as she knelt over him to settle where she could rock her hips against his cock, but without taking him in. So soon after an orgasm she wanted a little time to be ready again, and the feel of him silken-slick and so hard for her was a very particular aide, the ridge of it and especially the warm, blunt head sliding back and forth along and then between her sensitive lips, mingling precome with her own arousal to ease the way further. He did not distract her, hands rubbing along her thighs in time with her motion, rocking the slightest bit up against her, in familiar rhythm.

His usual inclination towards tenderness could be coaxed most easily into urgency when she did this. She waited, waited, as her arousal swelled and pulsed in her again, until his hips stilled as he struggled for control, and his fingers dug into her hips harder than he would've allowed himself otherwise. " _Aveline_ ," he growled, all naked hunger and urgency.

"Yes," she said, and he pulled, dragging her forward into position and sliding in with one rough push and a low groan. The vigour of the thrust satisfied her; she arched into it and sighed. 

Sometimes she persisted with driving him until her answer would see him rolling her over, quite overcome, and fucking her with abandon until he came. Not today. She moved steady and slow now, leaned down, and his mouth found one of her breasts. He kissed at it, open mouthed on either side and beneath and then drew the nipple into his mouth, tongue warm and wet, and she rocked firmly, hands braced. One of his stayed on her hip, a guide to her rhythm, the other gripped and rubbed at her thigh, her side, traced down her calf and up. Her eyes had closed and she drew all the sensations around her like a veil against everything outside the room. Just she and him, just their touch and their sounds.

"Again?" his voice breezed cool over her nipple as his roving hand ran knuckles down her stomach and his thumb worked gently between where they were joined. "I think you might, I think you might," he murmured, and his deepened, aroused voice alone was nearly a self-fulfilling prophecy by now. 

"Yes." Her voice was rough, she barely heard it herself, too preoccupied. She altered her angle, found his hand with hers to perfect his touch. 

She rode and he urged her on. "The way you move, not a thing like it. Come on. Yes, you're near, so near. Come, love." And she did, with a whine and a shudder and a lovely, warm bloom all over her skin.

Donnic sat up underneath her as she arched back, held her close in his lap, braced an arm behind him and drove up into her with a moan in every exhale, until he came with his face in her neck and, his arm clinging tight, the little pulses of his cock within her accompanied by quick, warm breaths against her skin. She held onto his shoulders and kept her eyes closed, rubbing her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck.

They stayed silent like that for a little too long. A shiver at the air cooling her sweaty skin had Donnic moving and sliding free with a wistful noise. He nudged her until she lay down and padded about to fetch cloths and a cleaner nightshirt. 

She could have dozed off after she slid into the new shirt, and he tenderly wiped her clean so she could sleep, but resolutely stayed awake until finished his own ablutions. He rejoined her in bed, rolling towards her and tucking himself against her shoulder, heavy arm curling around her waist.

Aveline sighed into his hair, arm covering his and letting sleep take her before she could do much more than remind herself, _this is enough. Because it cannot be more._

*** 

"He won't fight for her when the time comes," Anders said, and Aveline glowered at him reflexively, but what followed was worse. "Would you turn against your own husband?" 

The cold that came over her had nothing to do with the freezing winter temperature. The towering anger that followed put even the cutting wind chill at an sudden distance as she saw red. 

She halted abruptly, struggled for a few moments, finally gritted her teeth and spoke before she had to punch. "I don't know if you're lying, or crazy," she snarled. He blinked, went wide-eyed, and there was a flash of confusion that vanished behind a headshake of derisive dismissal, and then he stalked ahead to rejoin Hawke and Destrier. The mabari drew nearer Hawke's side as Anders came up beside them. 

Aveline seethed unsteadily, getting moving again even as she took long moments to force a few deep breaths and wrap her fury in a guard's calm and leave it to cool. 

Anders' confrontational demeanour had worsened of late, along with his fervour for his cause. It was becoming… difficult. He knew very well she did not support Meredith's takeover, in all but name, of the Viscount's seat, or the Knight-Commander's failure to deal with the corruption of the templars, or the tension and confrontation that was spurring the spread of blood magic in the city. 

But the city, the _city_ was what she and Donnic served. Not the Meredith, whatever Meredith was imagining at the moment. The people. She could never claim all her guards were incorruptible, they were no paragons, only ordinary people. Just like all the ones she tried her best--and did not always succeed--to protect. Aveline had no perfect solution. She could not save the mages from the templars or the templars from Meredith. All she could do was _her job_ , as best as she could. 

It was not always to the ends she wanted. But she tried. And so did Donnic. 

She steadied herself further, enough now to once again pay attention to their surroundings. 

Hawke looked startled and then sad as Anders quietly ranted beside her, too low for Aveline to follow. She looked back briefly, caught Aveline's eye with a tired look of apology that Aveline nodded at but didn't otherwise react to. _All but cursed_ , Aveline had called Anders once, at the time imagining the consequences of his incredible situation off in some long-distant future. It didn't seem very far off anymore. 

She sighed. Perhaps this particular set of Hawke's companions was the best suited for who they planned to engage today, but it made for a tense traveling group. Fenris was still bringing up the rear, in his own ill-temper after Anders had, yet again, belaboured the point to him that Meredith did not belong in power. 

Fenris increased his pace to walk beside Aveline now, grim and silent, but she still appreciated the proximity, particularly in this freezing weather. He had a grey scarf looped around his neck, wore his thicker winter tunic, and had deigned to put on the pair of far too thin-looking boots that even he was very occasionally forced by the weather to put on. All this under the lined brown cloak Hawke had gifted him this solstice, and today was cold enough that he hadn't complained about wearing any of it. 

Her own armour was lined for winter now, and she had her own cloak to shield against the wind. She was glad of it too. The sky was clear but even worse than the frozen air was the harsh, erratic wind. As if summoned by her thoughts, it picked up and sheared across them, driving a few dead leaves along and dragging at their clothes. Fenris hunched into his cloak. 

"He's getting worse," Aveline said tightly, keeping her voice low, even though the now-agitated sound of Anders' discourse up ahead surely drowned out anything they said. 

"Indeed," Fenris said heavily, and Aveline looked at him to see his eyes on Hawke, profoundly unhappy. "She's tried… she's borne it all this time. I fear the end of it." He looked just briefly at Aveline, and she met the grim apprehension with her own. 

"Let's take care of this today, at least," she told him. The problem before them now, surely, they could fix. 

Her information was reliable, a good, longstanding informant, and the weather was clear, if terribly cold. 

Mercifully, all conversation went silent as they drew nearer the cave they'd been heading for. A lookout was silently dispatched, and the five of them scaled a low rise that overlooked the place. The signs of habitation on the open, sandy ground before the entrance would have been obvious enough on their own: a roughly built lean-to to stop weather, detritus of broken crates, old weapons and trash strewn about, a pile of mostly ash surrounding a fire, the wisp of smoke rising from it what they had followed to this spot. This lot weren't terribly concerned with keeping their hiding place hidden, and most of a day out from Kirkwall it was understandable. And convenient. 

The ground ended a ways off in a cliff that dropped to the shoreline fifty yards below, and some posts had been set, a little dock built to tie up a couple of ramshackle boats to, out on a spit of boulders and sand that stuck out from the beach. 

Two of the slavers stood beside the unkempt campfire, one in old boots and a heavily patched coat, shortsword at his hip, the other in robes and with a rough, bladed staff that drew a dark curse from Anders and a silent snarl from Fenris, the pale sheen of his markings gaining a dangerous glow. Destrier growled, low and quiet, the vibration of it felt more than heard. Aveline kept half an eye on the lot of them as she regarded the ground below. A few drifts of snow and patches of ice lay about the camp, but in the freezing air, the ground was otherwise dry. By her last reliable information, there'd be at least seven more in the cave, perhaps as many as twelve… 

The robed slaver sent his companion into the cave, who returned leading a string of captives on a long chain, all elves, and all Dalish, by their markings and dress. Two were particularly small, and Aveline felt familiar bile rise in her throat. The robed one paced the line, slowly, peering at them. 

"Wait," she muttered, "We can't attack while they're--" 

The slaver mage flicked a dagger into his palm from within his sleeve and grabbed one captive by the hair, baring his throat. The blade began to cut, and Aveline knew what would happen next. 

A booming roar shook the ground and scrubby trees around them, a crackling, thunderous tearing noise from the other side of Hawke as Anders was subsumed in Justice, on his feet, the voice and the rage of the thing inside him coming to the fore like a fist to the ears, the searing blue-white crackle as Justice's very being fractured Anders' silhouette--he whirled his staff overhead and struck the stone beneath them, hand out as runes bled virulent green light when they sprang into existence under the feet of those below. The blood mage staggered, the captives and the other slaver crumpled to the ground. 

Anders was over the edge and sliding down the rocky slope before the rest of them could move, but Fenris was immediately after him, cloak billowing as he sprinted, sword already unslung. 

Hawke bellowed and vaulted over the ridge, Destrier at her side, the pair skidding down the slope and using the momentum in their charge. Aveline, jaw clenched, was a mere yard behind, shield raised and eyeing the target. 

Shouts sounded from the cave mouth and sudden reinforcements emerged, unkempt armour and weapons at the ready. They'd go after the prisoners--Aveline altered her course and put on speed. 

The air seemed to ripple as the two mages collided, an ear-ringing noise Aveline couldn't even hear dizzied her, sparks and fire flew as Justice hammered at the other's defenses. Flaring runes and splashes of fire and electricity threatened friend and foe alike. 

A wall of ice grew, flung up between the three of them and the two mages; Hawke produced a crack with her first shield bash, Destrier widening it as he rammed bodily against the construct. Aveline left them to it, sprinting to put herself between the slumped, twitching captives and the armed slavers. 

Fenris was there with her. He tore his cloak off and she briefly saw the fury twisting his face before he blurred at the edges. Half invisible, half cloaked in silvery light that always made her sight seem to slide way from him, Aveline still sensed him there beside her with the ease of years of this, familiar glints of lyrium light pacing her as they both collided with the armed slavers. 

Aveline's shield swung, pushed, bashed and herded, not yet aiming for much damage, not while Fenris was moving. 

Like a gleaming wraith he slid among them, sword low to trip them, gauntleted hand reaching, and he tore a chunk from the side of the first target, the gore sloughing off his barely corporeal fist as he moved on to the next. Another, another, moving away and back, away and back, as he dealt his blows and Aveline blocked their escape. 

Then Fenris reappeared beside her, silver light draining from his form like water off of glass. Huge billows of his breath fogged the air before him as he seethed and raised his blade properly. 

Fenris swung and hacked and Aveline's shield rang and her sword came away bloody. 

"FIRE!" Hawke's bellow made Aveline turn to see a roiling globe of flame growing, blazing just at the end of the blood mage's staff. She cut and swerved, raised her shield to the fireball, dropping her sword to yank Fenris behind her. The fading curve of Anders' paralysis rune was under her heel, her leg below the knee suddenly lit up with the dragging, swollen sensation of pins and needles. She stumbled, kept her shield up, felt and heard the strange airy thump of contained magical fire land against her shield heating it briefly to sear the side of her arm. But tilted as it was, the ricochet spilled away and over their remaining three opponents before dissipating. 

A follow-up concussive blast of energy knocked Aveline flat, catching her as she tried to stand on her half-numbed foot. Fenris staggered but remained upright and stood above her as she rolled to her feet again, fending one attacker off before reaching to pull her the last bit of the way upright. "Nearly done here!" Aveline told him, then tightened her hand when her feet were stable, and when his grip squeezed in acknowledgment, she swung him halfway around her, propelling him that much harder towards where Hawke and Destrier were flanked by a mage duel and bared steel. 

Any further reinforcements from the cave entrance posed the most danger to the stunned captives, now starting to moan and move, but still mostly paralyzed by Anders' initial furious web of runes. She put herself between the cave mouth and the captives, half her attention on the mess of magic and the brutal movements of Fenris and Hawke and the mabari, all of the combatants silhouetted by angry vermilion roiling with lightning blue. 

Then she had to turn away as six more cheaply equipped foes erupted from the cave. Three stumbled to a halt and fled in the face of the bodies before them and the pitched magical battle. The last three seemed to consider her lone presence an easy target. 

She was not that. They went down with no trouble, until the last. A lucky blow punctured what must have been a weak join in her armour; she felt the strap give and the burn of the blade scraping against her ribs, but she clamped her arm over the flat of the blade and when he was too slow to let go, put her own through his neck. He was the last, and she turned just as another concussion of sound staggered them, a crackling flare of heat--and then the blood mage was down. Some of the remains of the slavers nearby looked drained, nearly mummified, as though the mage had drawn from their dying bodies in an attempt to survive, but to no avail. 

Anders--or Justice--had not merely defeated the other mage but had driven the blade at the bottom of his staff straight through his stomach more than once, and the pooled mess of green rune lines under his feet had crawled up over the body and lashed the mage half into the ground. Justice still stood, leaning all his weight on the staff, eyes glowing and hands crackling lightning down its length. The smell of burning cloth and meat spread from the mess. 

Fenris spared barely a glance for the dead mage, instead staring at Anders--Justice--and Aveline saw the slight drawing in of his limbs that preceded him drawing forth his lyrium ability once again, even as Hawke started moving striding forward, sword roughly sheathed, shield slung onto her back. Fenris' shoulders raised and his eyes did not leave Anders, and Aveline broke into a fast jog. She reached him, touched his arm so that he rounded on her angrily, but he subsided without a word. " _Wait_ ," she insisted to him, even if she couldn't say as much to Hawke. "I rather expect he'll take her approach better than yours." 

Indeed. Hawke spoke, a low, fierce tone that did not carry, and when Justice lunged she did not back down, only stood her ground, arms crossed, and suddenly the blue light snuffed out and Anders sagged before her, propping himself on his gory staff and turning with a stagger to see the aftermath of his work. 

From the angle, Aveline could see his expression was more tired than anything else. He stared down at the messy remains of the blood mage with a pained, empty look, which deepened to something rawer when Hawke drew near, taking his arm, a frown briefly creasing his forehead before he shook Hawke off and turned away so that Aveline could not see his expression any longer. 

"Should we be glad it was on purpose, this time?" Fenris spat, and Aveline hadn't forgotten the girl Ella, slain in Justice's rage at being called a demon. 

"I don't know," was all Aveline could find to say. 

Hawke stared after Anders, then left him there and made for the captives instead. 

The man who'd almost had his throat opened had only a shallow, if long, cut to show for his brush with blood magic. As Hawke and Fenris broke shackles, Aveline moved among the bodies of the slavers. One was alive when she reached him, the hole Fenris had made in his torso somehow having somehow missed vein and artery. He lay, vague-eyed, choking on his own blood, and Aveline put her sword into him without regret. 

She walked a perimeter. Destrier joined her, welcome company for the duration, both of them watchful for the ones who'd fled, though she imagined after the ruin of their operation, they'd have little enough reason to return. When she looped back, Anders had rejoined the others. He was kneeling carefully by a middle-aged woman with curling blue facial markings. Aveline watched Anders' expression; tired, but kind and sure, and the woman pulled her ragged sleeve up a little to reveal an long, nasty gash, the red of infection swelling the edges, and Anders started a gentle examination. Aveline felt an ambivalent smile pull a little at her mouth. It was rarer now to see him at this kind of work, but it always suited him best. 

She approached as Fenris was working to snap the pin on the last captive's shackles, a middle-aged fellow, his markings angular and faint. The two smallest captives, boy children surely not older than ten, one perhaps not even six, were huddled by him, and as soon as his arms were free he gathered them close. "Ma serannas," he said to Fenris, unsteady but fervent, and Fenris shrugged uncomfortably at the abject gratitude. 

One of the children, the smaller, squirmed free of his grip, pale eyes on Fenris, reached out skinny hands. To his credit, Fenris didn't move, not even when the child grabbed at his arm, pointing with his other hand at a gash on the inside of Fenris' upper arm. Shallow but still oozing sluggishly. "I'll help, ha'ren." 

"Gherith, stop, he's not..." the man started, then trailed off as the boy's hand waved insistently, and a glow of magic gathered. Then Fenris did flinch, but he stilled, though his grimacing tension was clearly holding him there with an effort. 

His markings flared, subsided back to a dull gleam as the boy clung to him, face screwed in concentration, and worked his healing on the wound. 

He fell back with a thump, looking drained but pleased with himself, the man locking an arm more firmly around him. 

Fenris shivered bodily, but stared not unkindly down at the child. "...Thank you," he managed, and strode off, heading for the cave. 

The boy looked sleepy, the man increasingly anxious, and Aveline spoke quickly to stop him thinking the boy had escaped slavery for abduction by the Circle. "You've nothing to fear," she told him. "That man is not a circle mage. And I am not a templar." Further down the line, Aveline saw Anders look up at her words, then fixedly back to his task again. 

*** 

Fenris took on the task of clearing the cave with a cold determination. 

No lurking slavemongers remained within, though, only rough-hewn makeshift furniture, barrels with food in various states of edible, and one cask of beer. This was barely the beginnings of a trading post. No market, no block, no mass grave for product deemed unsellable or "damaged in transit". 

It was very soon understood that, to the last, the newly freed Dalish had no intention of remaining, even for one night. Fenris could hardly begrudge them not wanting to spend another moment in this place. Anders and Aveline argued with them to no avail, finally pressing most of Anders' healing supplies on them, along with as much of the food as they would accept. 

After the older boy's longing farewell to a patient Destrier, the group set off, and after Aveline had combed the area and picked over the dead for any documents or other useful evidence that could link this band to other investigations, there was little else to do but camp until morning. 

Fenris would've happily left the corpses to rot. Anders, after a disgusted look when Fenris said as much, gathered what had to be the last of his energy to shift the earth and sink them into shallow graves. 

"I'd as soon not have to stare at them, thank you," he said, ignoring Fenris as he staggered on into the cave, where Hawke was performing her compulsive habit of poking around for valuables. 

The cave was uneven, but the main area spacious enough for a cookfire big enough to warm it, some crevice above allowing the smoke to escape, and the entrance had been curtained with a few layers of ragged blankets, keeping much of the wind out. Destrier sat sentry at the cave mouth, an old mutton bone claimed to gnaw on and content to guard them all. 

Anders fell asleep even before bothering to eat, head in Hawke's lap, with her bloodstained cloak over him as a blanket. 

Fenris was eyeing the beer cask, wondering if it would be worthwhile to bother opening it, when Aveline entered with an armful of dry wood and he realized that on the left, she was favouring her side and her arm both. Old and familiar displeasure at this cause the usual worsening of his temper. 

"You're hurt," he told her shortly. She gave him a funny look. 

"Yes? It's been known to happen." 

"Aveline! You should've said." Hawke frowned, her hand in Anders' hair moving to his shoulder. "I'll wake him--" 

"Leave him be," Aveline forestalled her. "It's nothing some salve won't help." She put down the firewood and came to sit. 

"Shall I?" Fenris asked. At her nod, he left the food and rifled through Anders' pack for what was left of their healing kit. As he came back to her, the day's fatigue was visible in the slump of her shoulders, and belied her dismissive tone. She pulled off her gauntlet gingerly, with a prolonged wince at the wet sound when it came away. A sticky, angry-looking burn was spread across her forearm, from when she'd deflected the mage-fire. 

Then Fenris helped her get free of her armour, marking the snapped-off buckle where the strike had landed. The clothes beneath, once Aveline was out of the layers of plate and chain, were stained with drying blood in an inches-wide patch on her side, near the bottom of her ribs. 

She picked at the under-tunic reluctantly, the tear from the blow that had inflicted the wound gaping open on her side, then finally pulled the laces loose and removed it altogether, baring herself from the waist up. Her breast band was bloodstained too and her skin visibly tightened with goosebumps even despite the nearby fire. She twisted awkwardly so she could peer at the ragged gash on her side. It was a mess of scabbing and oozing blood, her activity preventing it from closing all this time, but it was not very deep, or long. 

"See?" she said. "My clothes are worse off than I am." Fenris had to concede to her lack of concern; a stitch or three was likely all it would need. But it was too awkwardly placed for her to do that easily herself. 

Fenris did not reply that he'd far prefer to never see her bloodied at all--that was idiotic, unreasonable, and so deeply, obviously true from any of them that it was like saying water was wet. But he did give her his best attempt at her own flat stare for injured friends or colleagues. "Yes, they will need perhaps ten or twelve stitches to repair instead of two or three." 

She sighed and narrowed her eyes at him. He responded with a withering look, and got to work. 

Boiling water took little enough time, and then he washed the wound sittting cross-legged beside her on the cave floor, as she straddled the bench in the light of the fire. He worked in silence, dabbing and wiping carefully to work free the soft, incomplete scabbing that had formed since the battle, revealing the wound edges. Clean water to irrigate within, then careful stitches. They had done this for one another before and surely would again. 

Aveline sat still throughout, barely reacting to the needle, her arm raised out of his way. He looked up once, found her staring down at him. That moment lingered, and Fenris felt it shift the way he had been trying, all this time, to avoid. All at once he became much more aware of the amount of bared skin so near him, of the visible movement of her chest as she breathed. He could feel it too, where the backs of his fingers pressed against her side as he carefully held the thread. 

She looked away first, turned her face so he couldn't make out her expression, though the flush that reddened her face, and down her neck, was telling enough, recalled in an effortless flash the last time he'd watched a blush travel down her chest. 

A glance at Hawke revealed she'd dozed off at some point, not an observer of this fraught little moment. 

He looked down at his task again, a flash of frustration at himself for the roll of heat that passed over him. He returned to the careful work of tying the knot, pulled it snug, and Aveline let her arm lower with a little sound of relief. 

He cleaned and wrapped the burn next, silent and mechanical, a simpler task she could have done herself, but she didn't protest when he began, and when he was done she spoke, quiet and a little uneven. 

"Thank you, Fenris." 

_Be safe_ , he insisted silently. "You are welcome," he told her, voice too even, but better than some forlorn stammer. 

Bringing a bowl of food up for Destrier gave him the simplest excuse to let her wash and change without him present, and anyway, the solitude of the watch would be a balm of its own, even in the cold. Destrier accepted the snack with noisy enthusiasm, and lolled his tongue joyfully afterwards when Fenris caressed his ears. "Hawke is asleep. We'll be here. Hunt, if you wish." 

The mabari barreled off into the dark. Local wildlife beware. 

From the seat at the exit, one of the rough-hewn benches dragged to the lee of the cave mouth, Fenris could see a wide arc of the winter sky. It was full dark now, a few freezing points of light twinkling and a low, lopsided waning moon visible through stretches of low cloud. 

The shore was some hundred yards away and well below them, a path hewn from the stone led down to it along a sheer, low cliff, down to those rickety dock that made an unmoving scar on the water's surface. Scrubby growth and a few bare-limbed trees grew among the windswept coastal stone. The narrow, pale stripe of sand indicated the high tide, and the water reflected a shifting strip of moonlight from its black surface. 

The wind had quieted, a welcome change, since he'd thrust his cloak at the Dalish man caring for the boys. He'd kept the scarf, though, the grey wool snug and warm, the orange flower tucked in against his throat. The still air was cold, but bearable. He could make out distant lapping of the waves and low, constant sound of the sea. Stretches of shiny ice had formed where the water moved less, the trees and bushes were skeletal, leaves long blown off, only determined evergreens clung here and there, jagged outlines in the dark. 

Time passed. The moon carried on along its path. 

Destrier returned after a couple of hours, panting and yawning. He trotted up alongside the bench, dropping his broad, heavy head on Fenris' lap in a request for attention. 

Fenris knew he was not one for pets. The cats that lived in the mansion and killed the vermin that would otherwise be destroying his pantry were self-sufficient, and as such were allowed to remain. They had no names--knowing them all by particular descriptors did _not_ count--and he did not feed them… often. They were free to come and go. They chose to stay, and sometimes they requested his attention, and sometimes he gave it. 

But… they never seemed to quite so simply and thoroughly enjoy having their heads petted. And Fenris could find the appeal in that. Destrier was a fine fellow and good friend to Hawke. As well, he was large, and warm, and that was rather welcome in the middle of a winter night. 

Boots sounded on the cold stone behind him, heavy--Aveline. He glanced over his shoulder at her. She had a scarf snug around her neck and covering her chin, lined cloak held close. She carried her burned arm over her wounded side a little gingerly, but otherwise moved normally. 

"That's right, you gave them your cloak. Get back in there," she told him. 

"I've found a spare," he replied as she took the other side of the bench, rubbing a rough hand along Destrier's warm flank, and she smiled at the mabari where he was seated dozing and drooling, head still on Fenris' knees. They both sat a while, until a flicker of movement drew his eye beside him. Aveline's hair, strands undone and loose around her face, was stirred by the icy night breeze, her face in profile as she watched the sea, skin moonlit and eyes dark and tired. He could count the freckles on her from here, if he wished to. 

And of course he did wish to, and more besides. He dragged his eyes off her, stared without really seeing what was in the dark before him. 

The wind picked up abruptly, cold cutting suddenly worse through his clothing as a gust reached briefly into the cave mouth. The air smelled different, and below them Fenris saw the beach turn dark just before the shadow of the cloud reached them and the moonlight was hidden. Very little of the sky was visible now. 

"It feels like snow," Aveline said thoughtfully, "if those clouds don't blow past." 

Fenris let out a wordless growl of distaste. He stood, gave an apologetic caress to Destrier's ears for the disruption, though the mabari only huffed and moved enough over to lean himself on Aveline instead. 

"Keep warm while you can." she said. 

"Goodnight," he replied, and headed carefully back inside, the cave floor nearly invisible with the lost moonlight, until he turned the corner and the first gleams of firelight past the curtain revealed it again. Warmth returned as he drew nearer and that was very pleasant. 

Voices slowed his steps. He was not silent, offering fair warning of his approach, but they kept speaking as he made his way in. 

"You stupid man," Hawke was saying to Anders, fierce and firm, audible even though her voice dropped somewhat at Fenris' arrival. "how could you say that?" They'd arranged blankets and cloak for sleeping, and were lying face to face on the far side of the fire. 

It was courtesy around a campfire to pretend you didn't hear what else was going on. They were all relatively good at it, one got used to not even hearing the meaning of private conversations, though some things were more difficult to not hear than others. Sex and arguing among them. 

Fenris got on with serving himself a helping of the stew that had appeared over the fire during his watch, sat and stared at the embers under the pot. 

"I love you," Anders murmured, and Fenris abruptly wished he'd turned and left, even despite the cold outside. _This will end in pain_. "Beyond… hope," Anders said. "I don't want to hurt--" 

"How many times must I choose you for you to stop trying to argue me out of it?" Hawke's voice thickened. 

Anders laugh was small and helpless, a little shrill with relief. 

"Justice can go hang," Hawke said fiercely, and Fenris couldn't help but look, sidelong, did not miss the way Anders went utterly still, not even breathing in the silent moments after she spoke. "You are mine." Hawke had gone steely and gentle at once. "Mine, as long as you want me to be yours." 

"AIways," Anders replied. "I only wish I knew why you put up with the likes of me. Will you... for a while longer?" 

There was no reply, but the sound of a kiss, their combined outline under the blanket shifting. Fenris could see the motion of Anders' hand come to her waist, and they were still, foreheads together. 

The love was genuine. 

It was everything _else_ that Fenris doubted, and dreaded. But none of their relationship was his business, his affair, or his decision. 

He could only make choices for himself, bitter and necessary as they were. He hunched down as an oft-repeated series of recollections ran through his mind again; the words exchange after he'd at last properly woken from the draught's effects. 

Donnic had said--they'd both looked at him and-- 

They had _told_ him... 

\--he looked up slowly, turned half way to not-really look over his shoulder in the direction Aveline sat watch outside. 

What choice-- _what_ choice? 

Had… he…. could he have…? Could he… 

_Nothing needs to change._ So firm. Both so certain. The easier way. The better way. And he too had been utterly sure. 

But there hadn't been... 

a choice. 

He frowned, and felt one taut, painful edge of all that he'd struggled to bind in place begin to unravel. 

*** 

It was a beautiful morning. Aveline breathed in the icy air and stared out at the snow. The dawn had broken, but was dimmed and soft beyond a thick, low blanket of cloud. The air was utterly still, and snow fell in fat flakes straight down. It had been snowing since the middle of the night, and a soft, pristine blanket had settled over the ground, clean and white. 

The sounds of the sea were muffled beyond the curtain of snowflakes, visibility so reduced that Aveline could only look out into swirling snowflakes beyond the cliff, the water far below completely hidden away. Even the dim throb of the burn and the tenderness where Fenris had stitched her side seemed a bit muffled in the illusion of serenity. 

As if the world had shrunk down to just here. 

"I knew you'd love it," Hawke said, smiling at her with a touch of melancholy. 

"It's been a long time." Aveline's own smile spreading in agreement with a reflection of the same old grief about Ferelden in it. 

Kirkwall and the Free Marches did not get snow like this but once every few years. Occasionally it even lingered. out in the wilds, but inside the city it all too quickly melted under boots and the heat of people and buildings and chimneys into a slush-covered mess of dirty puddles. 

"Thank you," Aveline sighed. Hawke's smile turned a little brighter. 

"Well," she said, "I wanted to show you before--urf!" 

The sound of huge paws hitting the cave floor had preceded the collision; Destrier was so gleeful he barely changed direction, shoving past Hawke and out into the snow, bounding and rolling in the drifts. He rose on all fours again, snapped at some of the fat flakes as they drifted down, then took off on a gallumphing tear around the cave site, abandoning momentum periodically to roll and play. 

"Oh," Anders said as he reached them, following Destrier at a more sedate pace. His voice was one of welcoming surprise, and he stepped out under the falling flakes, turning slowly and looking up. He reached out to catch a flake in his palm, and another, and Hawke went out to join him, leaning back to open her mouth, turning to try and catch flakes on her tongue. Anders lit up at the sight. Aveline put her own arm out, catching flakes on the folds of her cloak, bringing them near to see the tangled crystal shapes. 

"...Oh," came once again from behind her, this time flat and unimpressed. 

Fenris stared out over the snowy landscape with a look of apprehensive distaste. His cloak gone with the freed Dalish, he was still wearing his despised boots and the grey scarf was wrapped snugly around his neck, but now he had a repurposed blanket hanging around his shoulders. The mere sight of all the snow made him look as though he was seriously considering returning inside the cave to wait it out. 

"I haven't seen snow like this in years," she told him. He looked at her, looked away with a shift of his feet, then he crossed his arms and put on one of his familiar surly frowns. 

"At least that means it won't return for years after this," he growled, and she shook her head at him. The weather and her wounding seemed to be combined to make a proper mood, and she knew she wouldn't goad him out of it with any amount of forced cheer. It always passed soon enough. The snow would melt and these wounds would heal, and all would be well. 

Or at least, she thought, watching Destrier barrel toward Hawke and tackle her gleefully into the snow with resonant barks while Anders laughed with clear joyful amusement and Fenris sighed heavily and radiated irritation, she could pretend it would, for a little while. 

*** 

Donnic went down face-first onto ice-slicked dock planks and grunted at the weight of the the first boot on his back. They'd gotten his sword off him and his shield arm was pinned under him. He ducked somewhat futilely, wondered briefly if he'd be feeling the steel of his own weapon at the back of his neck in a moment. 

His head ached with the staff blow from moments ago, the metal-wrapped wood not a mage's weapon, but a simple and effective quarterstaff, and as the gang was unimaginatively named "the Bludgeons", it suited. The blow had been less impact and more glancing wound; he wasn't dizzy, but the hot line of pain on his scalp was starting to sting, and the wetness was warm over his forehead, a contrast to the freezing rain. He blinked at his vision blurring red as blood began to get into one eye. 

He slumped, a pretense, settling his gloved hand, one knee and the other boot against the planks, prayed for enough grip on the ice, and then he took a breath and heaved. 

He surged up, spilling them off his back and keeping his footing against all the odds he'd have wagered on. He put a foot on the chest of one holding his arm and they flew back against the wall while he spun and flung his shield out. It struck with a solid, wet thud, and another of his attackers landed senseless in a pile of uncoiled rope. 

He heard familiar shouts through the sheeting veil of rain. Help, at last. "THIS WAY!" he called. 

"More guards comin'!" a thin voice among his attackers hissed. 

"Kill this 'un an' let's go!" another urged. Donnic snorted. 

"No," he told them flatly, but was slowly driven back as the lot of them pressed their attack. He swung his fist, grabbed at one and used her to topple a pair of the rest, then caught the haft of a sledgehammer before it struck his head. He couldn't wrench it free, but held on tight, he and his assailant fighting for balance as well as the weapon. 

There were too many of them, and he was tiring, he knew that, but the shouts were getting closer. 

At last a sonorous bark and a sputter of angry yips preceded the sprinting boots of the patrol he'd sent for when he'd found this gang's squat in a partially burned boathouse. The guards' two mabari companions collided with the group surrounding Donnic, and he was able to fend off the rest with little effort as most of them tried to flee the bigger of the two dogs and were rapidly brought down. The pup was on their heels moments later, claws scrabbling for purchase against the ice and snarling shrilly with jaws locked on the boot ankle of one of the Bludgeons. 

"Donnic!" Guardsman Lia greeted. She gave him a chagrined salute and winced at the sight of him, looking only marginally less sodden than he felt. Her mabari glanced back at them before continuing to oversee the arrests. The huge animal was a hearty brown-spotted bruiser who'd 'imprinted'--according to Aveline and Hawke--on Lia when the young elf woman had been among those recently breaking up a breeding mill. She answered to Lia above all others, and she and her one surviving pup from the mill--who she had not and did not suffer to be left behind at any time--were as canny as Hawke's Destrier, and learning well. "Sorry we were late," Lia said. 

"Just a bit," he replied equably. He retreated under the overhang of the warehouse's roof, and pulled his gauntlet off to wipe some of the red from his eye. "Leader wasn't in, more's the pity." She followed him into the gang squat. "Little enough product, as we thought. But the papers there will be of use." He pointed back at the small stack of forged writs and inventory lists on the one clean and dry table in the building. 

Lia's predatory satisfaction was worth the head wound, and though he tried to linger to ensure no additional Bludgeons emerged from the woodwork, he was soon shoved out the door to go back to the Keep to report and be tended to. 

It was a long, icy walk, but when he pushed through the door to the barracks, still holding a wadded, blood-soaked bandage to his head, much of his fatigue from the day vanished at the sight of Aveline, Fenris and Hawke in the front hall. He'd thought he'd seen their apostate friend lurking outside, tucked in an alcove away from the foul weather, but hadn't been certain. 

The pool of ice-melt spreading beneath them indicated just how recently they'd made it back. They all looked as tired as he felt, Fenris' mouth was twisted in familiar distaste at cold weather, but it was heartening that none appeared injured. 

They all looked over when he entered, three warriors ever alert to their surroundings. Hawke looked sympathetic at the sight of his wound. Aveline's expression moved as always from a flash of deep dismay at the blood to a chiding worry before her Guard-Captain mask resettled. He'd be getting a more thorough helping of her concern later on, he knew that, when she would look over the wound and then ask for the full account of the scuffle that had given it to him. 

Fenris, though, was startled in the worst way, eyes widening with a shock that hit Donnic deep in his gut, the kind of reaction he hated seeing when having to deliver the most terrible kind of news to someone about a loved one. 

Unlike Aveline, Fenris had not yet seen Donnic arrive after shift with any number of lacerations, bruises, and occasional copiously bleeding head wounds--it just didn't happen all that often, luckily. And unlike Aveline, Fenris did not promptly master his expression with the ease of years of coping with this sort of thing, so Donnic for the first time saw Fenris' stricken fear shift to anger at the sight of one of his friends injured. 

"It's nothing," he offered. That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, altogether. 

" _You_ ," came a low snarl. "You-- _both_ of you--" he was fairly growling with an unsteady anger Donnic could not have pictured before now, glaring between Aveline and Donnic, and this was more than just over his wound, surely. 

"Fenris. He'll be fine. Ease up," Hawke told him, reaching out to touch his arm. That also didn't help. Fenris lurched back from her hand and glared. 

"Maker's--you two, in there," Aveline snapped at Fenris, and gave a milder head-jerk to Hawke towards her office door. "You, get cleaned up," she ordered Donnic in turn, the flash of temper trailing into an apologetic look for her tone. 

He nodded, and headed for the infirmary first. 

Not a half-hour later, he approached the Captain's office with a little trepidation. He'd had a quick scrub, and his scalp had a dully throbbing stripe of slowly numbing pain a bit up past his hairline where the stitches were. He'd peeled away his soaked gear, replaced it dry spare clothing. His face still stung with abrasions from impact with the ground, and he was still shivering involuntarily every minute or so. This rain truly was dismal. 

Evening was coming on and he very much wanted a soft place to sit and a hot drink. Unlikely to find either in Aveline's office, but he didn't want to leave her to weather Fenris' mood on her own, or leave Fenris so off his keel. 

Hawke passed him on her way out with a bit of a sympathetic grimace. Within, he found Fenris slumped and glaring on a chair in the corner, and Aveline carrying on with her notes about the foray. The grip on her pen was a little white-knuckled, and he could feel the brittleness of her patience. It would have been a long trip back. They were all three of them worn out. 

"Love," he greeted, and Aveline looked up, the brief version of her smile that she kept to at work easing some of the tired tension in her shoulders, and lightening his heart as it always did. He smiled at Fenris as well, accepting the unbreaking glower he was still apparently to be awarded. The man had spent hours walking in snow, which he already hated, and then the worst kind of rain storm. Ill temper was excusable. "How did you fare?" 

"We got them," Aveline told him. "Captives were all Dalish. They wouldn't stay." 

Donnic could easily imagine why. 

"No prisoners, unfortunately," she went on. Fenris' grunt at that statement was less angry and more satisfied. "Anders had an… episode…" she continued with a sigh, her pen stilling against the page. "But... a worthwhile trip all told." 

"It _snowed_ ," Fenris spat. "And then it _rained ice_." Donnic bit down on some tired amusement, and gave Aveline a sympathetic look that she met with a controlled, fraying sigh. 

"That it did." Donnic leaned stiffly to perch on the edge of Aveline's desk, and looked Fenris over properly. As he'd thought upon entering, Fenris seemed to have made it back unscathed, aside the icy soaking and his furious glare. That was a comfort. 

"Fenris," he tried again, willfully ignoring all the sore places that would be bruises tomorrow. "I'm _fine_. Or I will be soon enough." 

"As will I," Aveline said, some resigned annoyance bleeding into her firm words. 

"That's not--!" Fenris snapped and stood up in the same moment, the motion interrupting his own words. 

The anger off of him altered--something had tipped somewhere and Donnic didn't know what. Beside him, Aveline sensed it too, and looked up again from her work. Fenris took a breath, gave Donnic a fierce once-over that seemed to reassure whatever small part of him was not glowering. He looked at Aveline, seemed to steady the slightest bit more. 

He looked relieved. But angry. And daunted. Donnic could not pin it down, it was all those, but what was drawing them all together, Donnic couldn't guess, and the pang of misgiving was far worse than any of the discomfort lingering from the scuffle. 

Fenris eyes returned to his, narrowed, accusatory. "That's not it," he began again, took a stalking pace towards them before he drew up short. 

"What, then?" Donnic prompted cautiously, and the struggle in Fenris grew more and more visible, a tension like someone girding themselves to rip a bandage off a wound. 

Fenris took a long breath, and it hissed out of him again before he spoke through gritted teeth. "After. After it happened. You both said--you _told me_ \--it wouldn't change." 

Donnic felt like the floor lurched hard under his feet, making his stomach sink. He'd thought--or at least he'd hoped they'd been alright. He thought things had… settled. Recovered. Had they failed in that? He couldn't pretend he hadn't let things slip. Somehow it was more difficult to hide now, knowing that Fenris was aware. 

Fenris took another step towards them, then halted again as if unable to move nearer. His eyes were dark under the shadow of his hair. "You told me. But I didn't get-- you never _asked_ me." 

"Asked…" Aveline repeated. "Asked you if…" she didn't finish the sentence. Donnic wasn't sure he dared either. Donnic felt a frown lower his brow, confusion foremost, and then it tried to clear at the implications of the words, and he blinked. 

_You misunderstand. Surely you do. He doesn't mean…_

Donnic reeled internally from the implication that was trying determinedly to surge up into acknowledgement, feeling as though he was clinging to the rail of a ship and refusing to look at what was supporting the hull. 

He glanced at Aveline, saw her expression growing wider-eyed but very, very careful. 

Fenris' fists tightened, he paced back along the wall for a few steps, turned and went the other direction. "You didn't ask me!." The last two words were bitten off and harsh as he rounded on them. "You had decided. For yourselves. And for me. But I did _not_ choose…" he made a savage motion at the space between them, and all that the three of them knew it held back, " _this_." Fenris stared at them darkly. 

Donnic hadn't forgotten a moment of that strained exchange after Fenris had emerged from their room. Trying foremost to sidestep any pressure, to swiftly return to something like normal, for his sake… 

But had it been for Fenris, really? Fenris had said little, and they'd forestalled much, lest dwelling on all that become too much for him to bear... 

Donnic's eyes moved briefly to the places on Fenris' skin where the lyrium markings showed. _Too much for him to bear?_ And he met intent eyes, the green dark along with his expression. 

Fenris _had_ borne it. The night's ordeal, the weight of what they insisted did not matter, the struggle to pretend everything after was as it had been before. 

While they'd been the ones unwilling to hear outright rejection. And they'd been so absolutely sure that's what they would hear. 

"So. _Ask_ me!" Fenris said, voice hard, startling Donnic back to the present. 

He kept very still, still as Aveline. "You want us to say it plain," he began, the words slow and deliberate and still just himself resisting having to say them aloud, the old reflex impossible to shake, because _he can't mean…?_

Fenris' flat stare met his eyes, challenging. 

"Fenris, are--do you..." Aveline trailed off, and when Donnic looked at her, she implored him silently. He saw her lips press together, bitten down, afraid she'd not say the right thing. 

"Ask. Me." The words were brittle. 

Donnic struggled to say what he'd not dared to. Silence hung and stretched, seconds lengthening and Donnic at last found his voice, mouth dry. 

"Fenris," he said. "You know… how we feel." Fenris chin jerked upward in a motion that might've been acknowledgement, but the rest of him was poised, tense and waiting. Donnic took a little breath. "Do you want that?" 

"Us?" Aveline added softly. Her pen lay flat on her report, fists tight and pressed against the page. 

Fenris rocked slightly back, a faint stagger to the movement like he'd caught something he hadn't known would be heavy. Silence stretched and Donnic made out a flash of bewildered panic, a gleam of lyrium that ebbed as instantly as it shone. Fenris mastered himself and glared. 

" _Yes,_ " he snapped, drawing himself to full height. 

Donnic stood up, against the protests of all his imminent bruises, and heard the scrape of Aveline's chair against the floor as she did as well. Silence reigned from all three of them for a moment. Fenris watched them, his ire slowly turning to impatience as they did not reply. 

"Fenris." Aveline spoke first, voice thick, shocked. He looked at her, looked at Donnic, who still hadn't found the words to respond, mind reeling like he'd been struck. 

Fenris exhaled, still aggravated and growing slightly wild-eyed. "Make of it what you will," he snarled, defensive anger rearing up after having bared himself this way. "Perhaps _nothing has to change_ ," he repeated their words back to them with cutting sarcasm, "but now you know." 

And then he left, yanking the door closed hard behind him. 

Donnic spent another few useless seconds staring at the door, then spun and found Aveline as thunderstruck as he. She was staring into the middle distance, at where Fenris had just stood. Disbelief pulled her brows together in a frown, her gaze flickering within and without, between memory and the present. She shook herself, found his eyes. "And we thought--" 

"We assumed," Donnic murmured, and Aveline's stricken expression mirrored his own, he was sure. "I've heard what Varric says about assuming." 

"It just--it seemed--" Aveline sank back in her chair, wincing faintly and putting a hand against her side. "It seemed… best." 

"I know." Donnic took a step towards the door. "I--should I…?" he stammered, caught. Fenris' answer certainly invited further conversation. Among other things. But... 

"Go after him," Aveline told him, a little frown of nervousness not undermining the resolve settling in her gaze, that solid bulwark he could always lean on. 

"I--My shift," Donnic said dumbly, "The report…" 

"Lia will report. You're injured, love, you're dismissed." Aveline's voice was patient, she could read his turmoil. She was right, of course. He'd be halfway home by now if not for… all this. While she had to remain. Days away from the barracks required it upon her return. But not Donnic. "Tell him we--" Aveline caught herself. "Ask him," she said firmly. "Ask him what he wants." 

Maker take all the hesitation and the muddle, at last. 

Though... "what if he wants--" not entirely unbidden, Donnic had a fragmented memory of Fenris' skin under his hands, and a speculative rush of imaginary sensations--his mouth, his hands-- 

Now _there_ was a towering presumption. Even speaking to him was not something Donnic entirely dared predict the immediate outcome of at this point, let alone anything more. 

Aveline leaned forward towards him, and he reflexively met her halfway. She kissed him, hand coming to stroke roughly up his throat and under his jaw. "Just find him, first of all. Ask him what he wants, and give him that," she said, "until we both can." 

*** 

Fenris stood and dripped on the floor before the hearth, feeling frozen and nervy all at once, his damp gear and the horrendous freezing rain carrying the day's chill right through to his bones. His lyrium remained determinedly un-chilled, a blurry tracery of false body heat through the numbing cold. 

He was alone. The grey tom had greeted him, out in the foyer; Fenris had stopped there while the tom arched and leaned against his shins, then stalked off on one of his frequent patrols, leaving Fenris to pace, body tensed against shivering, towards his inner room. 

The dead fire waited before him now, the mess of cold ashes heaped around large remaining chunks of black-and-white charred wood. They'd serve to re-light it, with kindling and new fuel, if he could just stir himself to begin the process. 

_Ask me_ , he'd demanded. 

Something to choose, now that he had realize there was a choice to be had. And he'd heard them say it aloud. 

_Do you want us?_

Yes. _Yes._ He'd told them. 

He snorted. 'Told' was less than accurate, with his ire growing the whole way back until the words had been as good as forced out. 

And now--? All this time, trying not to dwell on it, yet dwelling on little else, and then all of it laid bare and then… he'd fled, overcome and as unable to face them as he'd been on that first morning after. 

He put his arms against the stone mantle, leaned his forehead exhaustedly against them and closed his eyes. 

He could remember so many nights, Hawke and Anders curled together beside the fire. Not only this most recent trip but many times before, sharing blankets, sharing breath, making motion and sounds that were not quiet enough to miss. Grating against his awareness on nights he had been unable to sleep. 

Pretending he was unaware was not at all like being actually oblivious. 

Fenris sought again the memory of Donnic pulling him close, heavy hand open on his chest. Aveline's kiss on his forehead, her fingers in his hair. 

The frustration that he'd finally articulated so hamfistedly in Aveline's office was spent, replaced with restive, discomfited _waiting_. And that, he'd brought on himself by leaving the barracks as he'd done. And still, lurking below, the ever-present awareness of how he did not fit into their lives, no matter what any of them felt. 

_Because you don't_ , hissed the unkind voice within. _It doesn't matter how you answered that question._

He sighed heavily and opened his eyes, looking down at where the snow melt dripping off him had darkened the stone underfoot. As he stared, one of the two black kittens padded from the shadows and settled down, paws folded beneath itself, waiting for the fire that the cats had learned to associate with his arrival. Fenris snorted quietly at the animal's expectant manner, and pushed himself upright, worked stiff, cold fingers a moment before removing his gauntlets and groping for the flint and steel that he kept on the mantle. 

Not much later, Fenris had changed his clothing, endured a speedy, cold wash to rid himself of the accumulated grime of travel, and hung his wet things haphazardly near the hearth. 

The second black kitten had sprawled beside its sibling, and hungry flames were licking at the big log he'd placed over the kindling. 

The kittens' ears perked a moment before he too heard the sound of the mansion's front door opening. Distant noises of outside, wet and ice-slicked Hightown, reached him across the empty foyer. 

He rose and went out into the hall. 

The noise of outside faded when the door shut. Donnic had let himself in, and the sight of him was welcome and colossally daunting all at once. 

He was off-duty now, had to be after that wound, and he stood damp in his winter coat, and Fenris could see the virulent orange of his hat where a corner of it stuck out from where he'd stuffed it in his pocket. On his scalp Fenris could make out part of the area where a medic had clipped his hair short to stitch the wound. A bruise on his face was darkening, abrasions below his eye purpling outward. Fenris clenched his jaw, then dragged his attention past the injury to the man's expression. Donnic was looking around, and when he met Fenris' eyes, there was a light there in his relieved smile that Fenris had not felt before, and yet he recognized it easily. Donnic's eyes on Aveline shone just like that. 

"Fenris?" he said. His voice was a bit breathless. 

"Donnic." Fenris wanted to close the distance, but a belated mess of embarrassment, pride and nerves kept him up there, his grip white-knuckle tight on the landing banister. Following Hawke home to Kirkwall had seen him floundering within as he also walked through sodden mud, grimy slush and hidden slicks of rotten ice. He'd sulked and stewed while walking beside or, most often, some steps to the rear of Aveline, spasms of rising frustration being restrained with ever-greater effort in the face of both his startling realization and the abominable freezing rain. All that had evaporated--aside the rain--but he was still fit to burst with this altered mess of emotion. 

Donnic came to the stairs and halted at the bottom. The way he held himself and the place he stood reminded Fenris of the first time Donnic had come here, years ago, rather wide-eyed at the unkempt state of the place, all earnest and overly mannerly with the novelty of the situation. Fenris had felt testy and awkward at the time, temper short in defense of his uncertainty about quite how to receive a new guest for a purely social undertaking. But he'd been determined to make the attempt. 

Just like now. 

"We were concerned," Donnic told him, his voice unbearably hopeful in a way that shouldered directly past the misgivings that had eaten at Fenris since he'd left the barracks. 

"I am... fine," Fenris replied, repeating back Donnic's own statement from earlier with an ironic twitch of his mouth. Donnic's words had been belied by the mess of blood down his face and the rain-soaked fatigue in his bearing. Fenris had no such obvious lie to his words, only poised exhilaration for what might lie ahead. He'd found his way to a door that had been closed, but unlocked. Dragged it open, once they'd cracked it from the other side. What was beyond, he had still to explore. 

"And," Fenris carried on, voice stiff but trying to convey his embarrassment, before Donnic could reply, " I am sorry. My anger was… unreasonable." 

The return trip to Kirkwall had nurtured his turmoil rather beyond where it had needed to be, he knew he had to have been tiresome for the entire trip, his silent stewing grinding at him so thoroughly that he had been almost mute with it until Donnic had, finally, asked him the question. 

"Not so sure about that," Donnic replied, a soft disagreement in his tone, and he came slowly up the stairs, stood next to Fenris so that they were both leaning against the creaky banister rail. 

Fenris shook his head. "That day… I'd already convinced myself I couldn't. Even had you asked then, I would not have--" he broke off, looked to the side. "It would have been… too much." 

"And still, we could've asked--offered," Donnic said simply. "We were far too sure of ourselves, sure what was for the best, especially after--afterwards." Donnic's pained frown held more guilt than Fenris ever wanted to see on him. "But we didn't want to hear you say no." 

Fenris wondered if he'd have said that. More likely a stifled _I can't_ and then simply retreated, overwhelmed, with an ensuing silence on the matter that surely would've seemed like nothing other than rejection to them--and to himself, with very little convincing. 

These months of imposed stasis on the whole matter had given him time, at least, to grapple with wanting, with being wanted. _Nothing has to change_ had kept the finality at bay, and even assured him, contrary to the point of the promise, that their feelings remained. 

Fenris looked at Donnic. He was a big man, some inches taller than Aveline, broad across the shoulders in the way some human men became, and Fenris had to look up to meet his eyes. That Fenris--or Aveline--could overpower him seemed of rather no consequence against the recollection of that large body near and warm. It was not enough, remaining all too vague at the edge of his memory. Better was the more distinct memory of him kissing his wife goodbye, leaning down and embracing her. 

Donnic was watching him now with patient eagerness. His hands were folded over each other on the banister, callused and rough-knuckled, with the one fingernail that had never grown back quite right, and nearly faded yellow bruise on the back of the other hand--not from guard duty, Fenris knew, because Donnic had told him during their last game of cards about having tipped an iron skillet onto it while organizing his kitchen. 

Fenris thrilled silently at the thought of those hands on him. On him again, if he was to be accurate, but this time… _properly_. 

"I did not say no," Fenris reminded him. "If you recall." 

Donnic's smile was blinding, new amazement and happiness and Fenris tightened his grip on the banister, feeling like he needed the support not to stagger from seeing that he'd caused such a reaction. "You really want this," Donnic murmured. "Maker." 

"I do," Fenris replied, feeling warmth flush across his face in reaction to Donnic's joy. And his own. That warmth seemed to lift all of him, like the effects of good drink, only brighter. 

Donnic reached out with one big heavy hand, to Fenris' face. Fenris tilted his head, and Donnic's fingers touched below his ear, smoothed down his jaw, palm slid to his neck, warm and gentle. 

"What now?" Donnic asked him. 

The touch on his skin put his body on alert, lyrium sensitivity heightening along with the rest of him. Without the blinding fog of the potion, it was… good. It soothed even as it roused. It was the promise of desire, but comfort too. 

He did not usually enjoy contact from others, even on a normal day. The tattoos made all contact that much hotter, colder, rougher, rawer. Pain came so much more easily. They all knew he shied from casual touch, they all left him that distance, though over the years it had become an unconscious thing, and the space needed to allow for his aversion had shrunk greatly as his friends grew accustomed to skirting the edge of it. And when they did touch him, accidentally or deliberately, never was it like anything Danarius' hands had done to him, and so it was easily forgiveable, but rarely was it truly welcome. 

Rarely, the craving won out over the aversion, when he could swallow it back and give in to a base need of his body he had not dared inflict upon someone close to him. Jethann, on some few occasions at the Rose, had taken money, and therefor instructions, with no judgement, and also with what Fenris had much later realized was a very deft and kind patience with a client who'd been curt, surly and extremely tense. And there had been Isabela, the once, a consequence of particularly fine wine and particularly bad weather. Certainly not regretted, but not repeated. 

He avoided contact even as he craved it--so it had been since the only beginning he knew. 

He had no way to know what experiences, or lack of them, might've been lost with his memory, but given the way he could pleasure himself, the way Jethann and Isabela had each felt novel to his senses but the actions not wholly unfamiliar, there seemed to be some instinct that had remained from somewhere, detached from memory. 

Now, the aversion had not been forcibly smothered, or locked away until it burst out again, it simply had been swept up into all the rest that he felt, a small prickling uncertainty beside something shifting and and blinding bright. It was there, but it was just a part of everything else, wrapped in too much care for it to unnerve him. 

"You promised me a rematch," Fenris said roughly. 

He sank his fingers into the rough wool of Donnic's damp winter coat and pulled and Donnic came to him, mouth as gentle as Fenris could've expected. He smelled of elfroot salve, and cold rain. Large hands covered his, engulfing warmth over his cold skin. 

*** 

Donnic was pulled into the kiss with a firm yank. The chilly skin of Fenris' knuckles was hard and almost sharp under his palms, and the kiss was determined more than it was skilled, but it was warm and it communicated everything it needed to. Donnic opened his mouth enough to invite, and didn't do more than add soft contact with his tongue against Fenris' lips, which earned him a surge, bodily, as Fenris leaned up into it. The stirring awareness in his lower belly was entirely pleased with this. 

The contentment in this moment vastly outweighed any urgency, though. He wrapped both arms around Fenris, breaking the kiss off from his mouth to embrace him close and tight as he'd longed to for ages, face turned into his neck, hugging the lean, solid shape of him to feel it as best he could through his coat. Fenris went still and just slightly pliant in his arms, for a long, blissful moment leaned his head to tuck himself against Donnic's shoulder. 

"Aveline," Fenris said. It was not a question, nor a deterring word. 

"Sent me right to you, she did," Donnic murmured. "You know she'll not leave her reports undone." Fenris' little noise of begrudging agreement made Donnic smile against his hair. "Then, she'll come home," Donnic went on, "and if you're inclined, we might wait for her there," 

Fenris straightened, and Donnic let him go with reluctance. He stared at Donnic, that searching gaze this time not strained in of the aftermath of the Tevinter draught, not exhausted or half-aware, and Donnic was not clenched inside with fear for him or dread of what might come after. 

Donnic could just smile. And Fenris' mouth curved briefly at the edges in return, and he nodded. His eyes flicked up to the top of Donnic's head, where the numb line of stitches was. "Such a wound as that, I'd be remiss to let you leave alone," he remarked. Donnic's grin threatened to split his face, and Fenris bore his delight with a noticeable darkening of his cheeks and a dismissive snort. 

"Do you need to take care of the cats?" Donnic inquired. 

"I don't 'take care' of them," Fenris objected primly, as he always did, before trailing off to 'make supplies available to ensure they perform their function adequately. Nothing more,' as he'd once put it. 

Donnic wandered after him to his chamber, where Fenris banked the hearth fire, scratched the backs of the pair of black kittens who seemed to be taking over this particular room from the old grey tom, and then set out the tray with the scraps that were somehow always saved for such occasions. 

The kittens set to, and as Fenris put a spare tunic into a bag, discontentedly stepped into his boots again, and wrapped his scarf around his neck, a heavily pregnant brown tabby, a young, dark-pointed grey and a massive white long-hair padded through the other door. 

The grey tom passed them as they left, tail gleefully up and trotting straight for his fellows around the platter. 

The reached the main door and Fenris paused, turning back to stare at this wreck of a mansion. 

"I live _here_." His voice was low, the statement sounding oddly like admission, but also… a challenge. 

"Yes," Donnic replied, in mildly perplexed agreement to such an obvious statement, and then he understood. He couldn't imagine trying to abruptly up and move Fenris from this place into theirs. The man's temper and need for solitude would make that into a disaster, surely. Perhaps that might change, one day. It was not the point of any of this, either way. 

He leaned his head one way and then other, considering how to put words to his reply. Thus far hedging and being solicitous had not worked very well, to put it mildly. Say it plain, he reminded himself. "What we want is you." he said. "Not to change you. Habits or home, or any of it." 

Fenris raised his hand to the soft grey scarf looped around his neck, and nodded. 

"Besides," Donnic added with a too-casual shrug, "your cats would miss you." 

"They are _not_ my cats," Fenris replied, repeating his half of this years-old habitual exchange. A lanky ginger tabby darted in between their feet and made for the inner chamber when Fenris pulled the front door open. Donnic said not a thing. 

*** 

The mood had improved but the weather had not. Fenris glanced up at the clouds--only briefly though, squinting against the sharp freeze of the rain on his face. 

He hunched his shoulders as high as he could, pushing the thick knit of the scarf up towards his ears under the cloak's cowl, and walked with Donnic, the orange hat in the corner of his eye tugging constantly at the corner of his mouth. The warmth within did much to fend off the chill without. 

There was an unfamiliar feeling beneath it all. Tension eased, anticipation in its place, and not merely for the hours to come, but there'd be tomorrow, and the day after… Things weren't quite settled, weren't quite solid but they were… real. If he extended his hand he could touch Donnic. Of course, this had always been true, but for the fact he'd never have done so. 

He did now, reached out and touched Donnic's arm, damp wool rough under his palm. When Donnic stopped and looked over with a question in his eyes, Fenris felt slightly foolish, and hadn't anything to say. 

Donnic's eyes crinkled, and his hand covered Fenris' just as warmly. "Nearly there," he said. 

When they finally reached their destination, Fenris was still rather cold, cloak heavy with rain, and he didn't particularly mind. 

As they neared the stoop, he slowed. Donnic preceded him in, and Fenris took the steps slowly, then stopped in the doorway, the noise of cold rain behind him and warm air before. He hadn't returned since that morning after, leery of stirring up all of what the three of them had mutually tried to ignore. He'd been there rarely enough in the first place, so that had seemed best. 

Last time he'd come to this door, confused and in pain, Donnic had been inside as well, taken him in, and… 

"Come in," Donnic invited now, hanging up hat and coat. He bent to yank at his bootlaces. 

Fenris stepped inside, closed the door against the weather, and tugged at the cloak's pin. He put the dripping mass of cloth on the hook beside Donnic's, looping his scarf over the same hook. His boots came off last and it was when pulling them off that he realized Donnic had been waiting and watching him while he leaned on the wall, a smile soft but bright in his eyes, avid and disbelieving all at once. 

"At _last_." The sound of his voice was almost too low to hear; Donnic was speaking to himself. Fenris swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth. Boots mercifully removed, the rough, well-used entry rug was beneath his feet instead, damp places where Donnic had stepped already. He could feel the floor, he could think, this time, and speak and... 

Fenris wanted all of the warmth in Donnic's eyes wrapped around him. The hours-long hike and the drain of his heightened temper should have left him staggering. The confrontation at the barracks and its resolution had given him some kind of second wind, but it had all but faded in the cold rain on the way here, leaving the core of comfort but also the wear and tear of the day across his limbs and his thoughts. 

He moved slowly across the threadbare rug, avoiding the wettest spots, towards Donnic, who righted himself from his lean on the wall only for Fenris to crowd up against him and kiss him. 

The act had his own instinct behind it but not very much more. He hadn't kissed, at the brothel, not like this, and his time with Isabela was a warm, wet, forceful blur with mouths put to use elsewhere for the most part. 

Donnic was new, and wanting to learn all of him created a current of intensity deep in the slower rush of exploration. Donnic's mouth was gentle, but certainly not shy, leading one moment, inviting the next, slow and wet heat and the scrape of his stubbled jaw. His hands had come up, heavy at Fenris' hips. Fenris held on with one hand, the other hand roving up, fingers at the opening of shirt where the hair at the top of his chest could be felt, then the ridge of his collarbone, and the muscle at the join of his shoulder and neck--he was so impossibly broad, this close up. 

__Donnic's hands rose to his back, then one to his neck, and slid up along one ear. "Cold," he murmured, fingers closing gently around the length before his hand slid down again._ _

"Warm me," Fenris growled against his chin. The stubble there tingled if he let it scrape against him, the varying sensations across his marked and unmarked skin were… good. It was good. 

That relief soothed some anxiety he hadn't even been aware of until it unwound. He recalled the shock of that relief once under Isabela's hands, and some few times with Jethann. Different ways, each time. He suspected there may be many of those kinds of fears gnarled up within him, somehow always surprised that this novel sensation, or that new touch, would feel good more than it would hurt. 

He was pressed chest to thighs against Donnic's warm bulk, his body heat moving wonderfully into Fenris through their clothing. 

He leaned into that, head dropping against his shoulder; the warmth and solidity of the man was too much to keep away from. Donnic slid a hand up his back, a motion that soothed and stirred at once. He pressed in the start of an embrace. 

A wave of fatigue passed over Fenris suddenly, and he just breathed out, breathed in, and sighed. 

"Too right," Donnic answered, arms settling solidly around him, holding him there for a little while. Then his hand rubbed again down Fenris' back. "What a day. Hungry?" 

And abruptly he was. 

At his affirmative reply, Donnic pushed away from the wall, pressing his mouth casually against Fenris' temple before releasing him. Fenris withdrew his arms with reluctance, and followed Donnic into the living area. A familiar volume, one of Varric's books, was on the nearby low table, and a wadded up mass of woollen blanket was at one end of the very worn, very comfortable-looking overstuffed couch. Fenris had to resist the urge to simply fall down there and pull the blanket over himself, as he did at the mansion when too exhausted to muster more--but food was coming, so he managed. He opened Varric's book instead. Reading was still difficult but the challenge was usually engaging, even if he'd accepted he might never be particularly good at it. 

Eventually there was a whistling of the kettle from the kitchen, and soon after Donnic had laden the table with tea, left again and come back with thick slabs of dark bread with butter and mustard and ham. It all turned to bare plates and crumbs after a deck of cards was retrieved from a drawer and they moved to the couch, devoured the meal, and played through a sedate round of Diamondback. 

Fenris gathered the cards when it was done, then shuffled and half dealt before he looked up to see Donnic dozing against the back of the couch. Fenris kept still, watching. He let the deck go, the cards sliding askew back onto the table. 

The man looked tired even now, but relaxed, lined face slack and shadowed with the day's growth of beard, and smudges under his eyes from of all the hours awake. Fenris frowned balefully at spreading bruises, at the edge of clipped hair and shiny smear of salve where the wound had been stitched on his scalp. Donnic did dangerous work, he knew this. It was only that Fenris rarely saw this immediate aftermath of trouble. 

He could not shut Donnic up in his home any more than he could Aveline, or Hawke, or any of them, to keep them safe. There was too much to do, too much they needed to do; like Aveline, Donnic's life was the Guard, so it was a senseless desire, and yet still it remained. 

_Be safe_ , he commanded silently. _You must. Please._

Abruptly, Fenris startled awake, having dropped off without realizing. The motion of his lurch upright made Donnic rouse slightly, a bleary blink followed by a jaw-cracking yawn and a heavy hand rubbing down over his face. 

"No," Fenris interrupted when Donnic grimaced and made as if to stir. "Sleep," Fenris told him. Displeased at the curtness of his voice, he reached out to touch his arm, hoping it softened the word. Donnic had rolled up his sleeves to prepare the food, and Fenris' fingers touched warm skin and coarse hair. Donnic's hand covered his, pressed, and slid away. 

"Sleep," Fenris repeated, still failing to sound at all genial and wondering when, if ever, he'd manage to say something like that without sounding like he was snapping an order. Still, Donnic's mouth made a brief smile, and Fenris stalked away to the kitchen, carrying the empty plates and mugs, then darting back out of the room it felt strange to be in alone. 

Fenris returned to find Donnic having succumbed properly, horizontal on the couch. _Good._ Uncertainly, Fenris reached for the crumpled blanket, found an edge and drew it up over him. It seemed the thing to do. 

What next. There was a large chair nearby, well cushioned and worn, matching the couch. That would serve--then Donnic stirred, again. _Will the man not rest?_ Fenris wondered in exasperation. Donnic shifted, and one arm dragged back the blanket Fenris had just pulled over him. 

There was a moment of embarrassed disgruntlement for having made the effort and then Donnic sleepily murmured, "got room." 

Fenris froze at the unexpected words. Indeed, there was room. The couch was deep, and Donnic was on his side, facing outward with an expanse of unoccupied space before him. 

Fenris stood and stared, and then the immobility was overcome by the invitation. So simple. He could just... burrow against him and rest, warm and together. 

He cast off the clinging nerves and moved closer. He sat, gingerly, startling when Donnic curled his arm around his waist, the motion dragging the blanket across his knees. 

It warmed him quickly, both the blanket and the utterly unselfconscious weight of Donnic's arm across his thighs. 

Donnic's arm shifted on Fenris' lap, a light hug, and Donnic's eyes cracked open again, his smile reappearing. Then, to all appearances, he sank back into sleep. 

Fenris sat, perched, for an amount of time he couldn't count. Every second he sat there seemed too long and too brief with the novelty of this. 

The lamp Donnic had lit earlier burned low while Fenris sat and failed to lie down, then it finally guttered and went out, the wick extinguished, and the room fell into blue shadow of late evening. All the warm colours in the cloth and wood, spines of books, scattered playing cards, faded away, save the dim glow from the kitchen fire visible through the doorway. 

The lyrium flared fitfully, involuntary reaction to sudden dark, but the hot needles of alert and alarm quickly receded. A strange heated chill took its place, prickling along his markings as his body attempted to sort through nervous enormity and manage his too-wary senses against the lack of any danger. 

Fenris yawned, hugely, nearly painfully, and rubbed his eyes, raw with the length of the day. He thought with a deep pang of Aveline, still occupied at the barracks, thought of the bedroom and the three of them there. 

For now… _I want_ \--he thought, looking down at Donnic's dimly outlined silhouette. _I just want…_

He fidgeted through a last moment of hesitation, then carefully lay down. He settled on his back, staring upward, nearly as stiffly as he'd been sitting, with an inch or three of space between him and Donnic that the man's heat radiated determinedly across. 

Fenris shook once, all over, a tremble of something too muddled to recognize now, especially tired as he was. Donnic roused the slightest bit, squirmed briefly, made contented sort of grunt, and dragged the blanket back up, arm resting heavy across Fenris' chest. His breathing slowed and evened out once again. Fenris stayed frozen still the whole time, even down to holding his own breath. 

Fenris couldn't imagine falling asleep now, here, where he could reach, if he dared, press with his fingertips and feel Donnic's solidity through his shirt, where he could inhale and smell him. But between one breath and the next, he did. 

*** 

Donnic woke to a slew of aches and sore places where fists and boots and blunt objects had left their marks on him. By contrast, he held an armful of wonderful wiry heat, the leanness and male scent altogether different from the curves and muscle he was accustomed to. Sleepy contentment spread through him, the beginning of arousal lapping at him in response to Fenris' body pressing down the length of his front. Donnic was half hard, his body pleased with the situation, without any particular urgency. That part was entirely like waking up with Aveline. 

With her, if he wanted more and if they had the time, he would touch her somewhere, stomach, arm, thigh, see if she would wake and return it. 

She'd told him (just the once, because her saying the actual words happened rarely even if the vocabulary of both their actions had broadened vastly) that she very much enjoyed waking up ready, that he could go any length further before she woke, if he liked. Sometimes he did, when he woke up hard, wanting; his hand stroking between her thighs could have his fingertips dipping into soft wet heat before her eyes opened and she pulled him to her. 

Now Donnic lay and just revelled in the combined body warmth and the way Fenris' head leaned into him, the rise and fall of his breathing under Donnic's arm. 

He'd've stayed that way very happily, but Fenris woke with a jerk and a shimmer of lyrium. He gave a little intake of breath, and his two hands rose to rest on Donnic's arm where it lay across his chest. Fingertips landed, rested, curled softly in a way Donnic thought he recognized, the way Aveline sometimes dragged her fingertips through the hair on his arms or his chest. 

"Hello," Donnic murmured. 

Fenris made a noise, a sleepy growl, and shifted under the blanket, his hip rubbing against Donnic's cock. He stilled, and Donnic shifted back slightly, opening his mouth to say--something, he wasn't sure what--and didn't have time to think on it, as Fenris moved decisively, rolling to face him so the point of his ear, angle of his cheek and his jaw were all Donnic could make out. Then Fenris kissed him and Donnic's hand went to his hip nearly of its own accord, the layers of tunic and leggings softening the jut of bone that Donnic knew lay beneath. 

With a shift and a shove, Fenris was suddenly braced up on one arm, his shadowy silhouette staring down at Donnic, glints of his eyes and dim silvery lines catching what faint light was to be had. "You should rest," Fenris said, but his voice was distracted, the words rough and rote. He belied his words without hesitation, leaning down again, hitching his thigh across Donnic's with a slow press and Donnic could feel he was hard as well, he felt the jut of arousal thicken as Fenris ground against him, and that was--wonderful. Reassuring and so very clear. His own body responded all over; he heard himself give a breathless grunt as his hands tightened without thought, the heat rose in his face and thickened in his groin, and he rocked back against that steady grind. 

He followed Fenris' motion with one hand, added to the pressure with his grip. The other slid up and he curled his fingers around Fenris' bare upper arm, finding skin and lyrium both cooler than his palm, an arm that could've felt thin but for the dense, corded muscle. 

Fenris' mouth slid from his, he ducked down, and now Donnic could see the dim window past the breadth of his shoulders. Fenris burrowed into his neck, and simply moved against him with an intent, hungry rut. Donnic moved so the angle of their bodies matched better. 

If this hadn't been the first time, if he wasn't loathe to stop them sharing this now, he might've suggested the bed, might've gone for the oil, might've done something that would be tidier than likely coming in or on their clothing like adolescents, but he had no desire to disrupt this. Warm exploratory touching in under a blanket on a narrow couch the dark was not deft, years-old experienced lovemaking but it was, certainly for him, lovemaking even so. 

...And after what had last happened in bed, this was perhaps a better start. 

Not least because, location aside, he could ask, and Fenris could tell him. 

"Can I," Donnic said, tugging at the belt of the tunic with his free hand. 

"Yes," Fenris growled. And Donnic worked the belt open, slid it free. Fenris drew back and began to sit up. Donnic couldn't see his expression, only the tilt of his head, the loose but intent and predatory lean of his body. 

He straightened, crossed his arms across himself and pulled the tunic off in one movement. Donnic begrudged him that--just a little, he wanted quite badly to do it himself. But he'd have other chances, wouldn't he? He let himself be entirely distracted by the lean chest, faint gleams of the markings in the shadows as Fenris leaned down again. 

"Can I touch everywhere?" Donnic spread a hand beside his flank, settled it on the waist of his leggings, stopped short of putting his fingertips to skin. He hadn't been so careful when Fenris had been consumed by the draught's effects; there hadn't been time and Fenris had not appeared to notice or care. Now the lyrium tracery made him cautious. "Will they hurt?" 

Fenris made an exhalation, hungry, thoughtful gust of breath. "...They are... sensitive," he declared slowly. There was no warning in the words, only information. Donnic carefully set his fingers against the skin of Fenris' belly in the narrowing space between two curving lines, and felt very gratified by the stutter in Fenris' breath as he ran his fingertips down the muscles. He went lower, found his cock pressed against the cloth of his leggings. Fenris hissed out a breath that ended in a grunt as Donnic palmed him, and shoved against his hand. Donnic found the hem, tugged it down and heard his own contented noise at the feeling of damp, aroused body heat. He curled his fingers loosely, and began a slow stroke. 

Fenris made a harsh little noise and drove roughly into his grip. He leaned heavily in, his weight pressing down with muscle behind it, the language of his whole body gone from intent to voracious. "Easy, love," Donnic soothed, adjusted how he lay so that Fenris fit better, gathered him closer with one arm. 

Fenris shivered all over, and began to thrust heavily. Donnic closed his hand to narrow the way, provide the friction he seemed to be looking for, and Fenris clutched at him, maintained hard, vigorous shoves, and his breath was turning into throaty, urgent noises that made Donnic's skin tighten with want. His own broken-off grunt was only just audible as Fenris's quick breaths filled his ears. His cock was generous with the precome that helped ease the way, not that Donnic was even sure Fenris cared any longer. He felt cast back to long-ago days of adolescence, hurried encounters in the workroom of his mother's laundry where it was all appetite and no finesse, arms full of heated overeager lover as they tried to find intimacy with each other while desire overran anything else. 

To have met Fenris then--he couldn't imagine. His own bashful, stubborn attractions at the time had been not infrequent, even as merely the foundling son of a Lowtown laundress, poor but proud, and--Maker, Kirkwall was no paradise but it was not Tevinter slavery. Could there even have been a time, long ago, when Fenris's pleasure had come easily for some now-forgotten first lover? 

Donnic could only hope, nothing more; wherever this clutching hard rhythm had come from, Fenris seemed like he was chasing his peak as though it would escape him, even here. "Easy," he repeated roughly. "I've got you." 

Fenris halted himself with a violent clench of muscles. He shook himself, the motion a convulsive shudder until he held tense and still. Donnic waited, held him, and Fenris breathed slightly slower, calmed enough that he wasn't rigid with restraint. Barely. He reached down, fingertips pressing against Donnic's cock through his trousers. Fenris curled his fingers, scraping demandingly over the cloth. Donnic released him, pushed the two of them apart just enough to undo all the accursed fastenings--by the Maker, leggings were far more convenient--Fenris' hand snaked down, long fingers cupped around his cock, and he squirmed until Donnic could feel the hot, rigid length of him press alongside. The sensation drove a sound from him and in lieu of movement he had no more leeway to make, he found Fenris' hip again and held on. 

Fenris made an uneven little noise, breath hot against Donnic's neck, and began to move again, heavy and dragging, now more just slightly more measured than desperate. Donnic only had to keep an arm around him and a hand open at the small of his back. 

The swell of pleasure grew, rose to the back of his throat, not just the hot, heady arousal but the anticipation of finally having this. "Wanted--for ages," Donnic got out in a ragged stutter, earning a hitch of breath and rhythm in reply. "You move like--oh, the sound--Maker--" Donnic groaned as words failed him. He turned his head, felt the curve of Fenris' scalp through his hair and pressed his lips to it. Fenris made a guttural noise in the back of his throat and quickened, the rhythm all of a sudden brief, light. Donnic made his grip lighter too, following the motions, but nothing more. "Here, here, for me, please, let me," he murmured, eyes closing the dark out, making everything just them, precome-slicked motion and Fenris' hand around them both. 

Quick thrusts and little gasps and then Fenris's last motion was barely a shiver. He stilled and with a bitten-back whine he came, spreading warmth that slid between where their bodies met. 

Fenris breathed deep, shoulders heaved for a few moments, until he gave a sudden, jerking twitch. Donnic felt a peculiar tingling heat against his palm, cracked his eyes open to see the gleam of lyrium fading. 

A determined exhale moved the air between them as the grip of Fenris' hand adjusted, strong fingers tightening on Donnic's cock. Fenris drew back, and raised his head enough for his his lips to land on Donnic's jaw, shockingly soft after the rutting vigour just now ended. At the first tugging stroke, Donnic rolled them slightly, tilting down to kiss him and rocking his hips gratefully into the come-slicked grip. He would have made this last longer, but he was too ready now. Finding his pleasure in Fenris' hand and in his mouth, warm and close and Fenris still moving with him, his fingers and his kiss; he was here, he wanted to be--he _wanted this_ \--Donnic's pleasure tightened to urgency, he squeezed Fenris close, mouthed at his throat, breathing him in as he fucked his hand and it was just… perfect. 

*** 

Fenris shifted slightly, Donnic's clinging embrace having barely loosened after he'd come. Donnic's mouth was pressed to his neck, one arm tight around his shoulders and the other hand open and flat at the small of his back, Fenris' arms pinned between them. Fenris was gathered as close as he could possibly be. 

It was not a surprise to discover that Donnic was prone to such an emphatic embrace, and Fenris lay and took in the warmth and the pressure and the sweaty, sticky proximity, until the immobility, to his ashamed displeasure, began to chafe. It was nothing he couldn't bear if he forced himself to do so... though he was relatively sure Donnic would not be pleased to find out Fenris had _endured_ this. Still, he did, a little, until his lyrium prickled involuntarily, protesting the confinement, and that unwelcome intrusion made him finally gave in, pushing at Donnic's chest for him to let go. 

Donnic's grip relaxed immediately, letting them draw apart. "Ah--? That was too much?" Donnic asked in sudden realization, worry and apology both more than Fenris felt was warranted. Was the man so solicitous of Aveline? Well--perhaps he was. Aveline certainly deserved as much, for all her durability. But the discomfort faded faster even than it had manifested, so Fenris caught Donnic's wrist before he successfully yanked his hand back. 

"A little," Fenris said simply. "I'm well." He smiled--with relief, and contentment and the lingering effects of pleasure--which soothed the concern, and some of the tension in Donnic's body eased away. "I'm very well." The lassitude that came after an orgasm was returning to his limbs. 

Donnic gave an uncertain exhale, hand ghosting gently over Fenris' arm. 

"You're certain?" Donnic pressed. 

Fenris made a wordless sound of confirmation. "I suppose I need to get accustomed." He curled forward into the space Donnic had given him, pressed his forehead to Donnic's chest. "Perhaps we might repeat this sometime." 

"Perhaps," Donnic said with a relieved chuckle. Donnic's hand resettled hesitantly against his back, warm and open. The weight felt good. 

*** 

Aveline stared at the words on the page, nearly a glare, rereading the last paragraphs of the report another time to make sure she had not missed anything. It took far too much effort, the words nearly swimming before her eyes. She signed off on it at last and dropped the pen down on the desk. Mercifully, none of the minor ink spatter marred the report page. 

She sat up, her shoulders tight and her side throbbing, the wound across her forearm sore and angry with the pressure of her gear. She hadn't removed it, wanting to go through these reports as fast as possible and finally go home. She should've thought better of it; night had long fallen. 

On her desk was a cup of tea, half-full, and gone cold… an hour ago? Longer? She recalled Bramwell bringing it in before, one of her youngest and newest recruits, barely fit to hold a sword yet but, with admirable aplomb, fearless of her mood in the face of his tasks. 

Standing, stretching as best she could with the stitches burning on her side and her limbs feeling utterly leaden, she made ready to leave. 

Bramwell darted from his post as barracks night-sentry to press a tiny vial of healing potion into her hand. "Ma'am," he said, guilelessly unflinching at her flat look. "Terrence's orders." The boy was unmoved by her fatigued ire--as her head medic had known he'd be. 

She snorted and shook her head, downed the astringent elfroot draught with a grimace and returned the vial. The cool wash of relief that ran through her helped, though, the burn on her arm all but vanishing and the stitched wound's hot throbbing fading immediately and the edge dulling on much of the soreness. Alertness returned, somewhat. She was better fit to make her way safely home, at least. 

"Goodnight, Guardsman," she told him, watching his skinny shoulders firm up at the address--even recruits were so addressed when on duty, even as nominal as barracks sentry. Beyond him by the wall, Lia's mabari lounged beside Bram's post. Lia was likely asleep, and the pup as well; but Gilly liked to guard her family, and treated most of the guards, recruits especially, like half-grown puppies in need of supervision, and occasionally of bathing. 

She set off, relieved that when she was outside, the dark, overcast sky had apparently only the dregs of its rainfall left. The icy, clinging drizzle blurred the streetlamps into hazy haloes of light and soothed the tight, hot overtired tension of her face, helping her maintain her alertness for the walk home. 

She wondered, as she made her way, just who might be waiting for her, if anyone. If Donnic had found Fenris at the mansion, they may well, she supposed, still be there. No way to presume, just yet, how that had gone, and while she hoped not to arrive home to an empty house, well, she was accustomed to it. But she couldn't help but wonder if they would both be there when she opened the door. 

The hopeful astonishment from the moment when Fenris had barked _yes_ to Donnic's hesitant question had remained this whole time, hovering at a safe remove from her tired irritability. She'd had to place her focus past it to take care of her duties, but she let it resettle about her again. 

She entered quietly. A lamp was lit in the hall--someone was here--but the house was silent. She removed her gear with as little noise as possible, though her hands were less than deft in her fatigue. She noticed Fenris' gear when she pulled off her own, his boots left carelessly askew beside Donnic's tidily positioned pair, and a blurry edged, dizzy elation came sluggishly together where she sat on the stool in the entry. 

She dragged herself upright, moved through the house. There was no one in the kitchen or the living area. She padded onward, feeling her heartbeat quicken with each step with the heightened emotional response of the exhausted, until she halted at the bedroom door, and looked through at something she'd only ever imagined. 

Her fatigue, now that she was at home, had crawled through to blanket her thoughts, and she formed little more than a deeply relieved _Oh… they're here._

Donnic and Fenris were asleep on the bed, and she felt quite sure that they hadn't _only_ been sleeping, and the thought caused a faint ripple deep within. Fenris' tunic was gone, his bare torso a lean, silver-chased slope, dark against the paler sheets and, unlike his limp slumber when he'd been afflicted, or the defensive curl he slept in when they were in camp, he was relaxed on his back, one arm spread, the other snug alongside Donnic's where it lay across his hips. Donnic's had put on one of his old nightshirts, and he was on his side, curled towards the person in bed with him as was his wont, right now with his mouth resting softly against Fenris' shoulder. 

A weight rolled off her that had been there since Fenris had stormed out of her office. 

_Ask him what he wants_ , she'd said to Donnic. 

And, Maker's mercy, here he was. 

She put a hand on the door frame and leaned, taking it in, feeling her throat tighten and her eyes swim. 

Nothing spilled over. She breathed through it, letting the overwrought reaction pass into a foggy calm. 

She pushed off with some effort, moved onward, lighting the small bathing room lamp, stripped, filled the basin and washed. The cold water raised gooseflesh all over her and left her unsteadily tense and dripping while she checked her wound. The tiny amount of potion had left it short of fully healed. She'd not want to pull the stitches out for another day or so, but it was just sore, nothing worse. She dried to the best of her efforts and brushed her hair, grateful for the muscle memory that moved her otherwise fumbling hands. 

The slow realization came that the sleepiness that had dragged at her was fading to the next, worse stage, where exhausted wakefulness took hold and did not let go, consigning her to gritty eyes and frayed frustration as her body longed for sleep that didn't come for hours more. 

But… at home it was not the frustration it was at camp. 

A sound in the doorway made her look over, hair tie held in her mouth as her hands were behind her head, beginning the loose braid. 

Fenris was there, in his leggings and nothing else. It was telling of her state that it seemed a surprise that he'd woken at the sound of her ablutions. 

She paused in her motions, caught in his gaze. The spread of heat over her skin at the feel of his eyes on her came on with a warm, gradual contrast to the clinging chill over the rest of her, pleasant and within some perceptible distance of more. 

When she met his eyes again he took a short step into the room. He made as if to speak, closed his mouth in a flicker of hesitant consternation, then his gaze landed on her hands. "May I," he said. 

She nodded, and he padded close, tugged the hair tie from her lips, fingers brushing in a way that her whole body felt, even through the fatigue. He stood behind her, carefully taking the ends of the braid from her, and tying them off. She closed her eyes as he did so, wanting just the feel of his hands. His motions were a bit halting. Not hesitant, but very unpracticed, and particularly careful of pulling her hair while he tightened the knot. 

Then he was done. When she looked around, she found him leaned over, peering, and she lifted her arm, one hand pressing her breast out of the way, for him to examine the wound, just as she had. His mouth pressed into a line, no anger now, only a vexed sort of acceptance. 

"I'll be fine," she repeated gently, even though the words were incredibly redundant by now, and he straightened with the dregs of the frustration in his eyes that she understood--had, always, ever since she'd realized the reason for his anger. "I know," she sighed. 

She suddenly realized she could--and so she did--reach for him and pull him near. His arms went around her immediately, one hand sliding up to the back of her skull, fingers gently sliding up into the braid he'd just tied for her. 

He held her tight, though he still favoured her wound. His fingers cradled the back of her head when she leaned heavily against him with a slow sigh, and his other hand spread on her back. She just held on, felt the warmth of his chest pressed to hers drive away the coldness of the room. 

"...Come to bed," he said, muffled near her skin, the words startling and wonderful to hear and, by his expression when he drew back, strange to say. He kept quite still, as if somehow unsure of her answer, but held on to her as she unsteadily straightened, and relaxed faintly when she nodded. 

He began to step away. She didn't want him to, and tired urges moved her without much thought. A little pressure from her fingers on his side arrested the movement, so that she could raise her hand to touch his chin. The contact held him there, and she felt his hand sliding free of her hair to only touch and tuck away some of the loose strands around her ears. 

She kissed him, a soft press to his mouth like a greeting, felt his mouth open just slightly, almost as if surprised. When she pulled back, he leaned to follow, and she could not resist that; she met his mouth again, opened soft to his intent but careful lips. The heat under her skin rose with the hot slide of his tongue, and the noise in his throat at her response stoked it further. 

Well, there _were_ some things that tended to help her sleep. 

It was he who drew away this time, eyes wide, the absence of him leaving the front of her cool and wanting him close again. 

She could see the evidence of his arousal too, not at all concealed by his leggings. 

She followed him out, accepting the nightshirt he offered her, taken from on the hook by the door. She slid into it, but left it open, buttons undone, as they moved towards the bedroom. 

Fenris preceded her in, and then she paused at the door, lamp in hand, not hesitant, but exhaustedly grasping to take in this enormity, this thing which was, somehow, truly happening. 

She'd step into the bedroom, and they would both be here. 

*** 

When Fenris returned to the bedroom, Donnic's breathing was still a steady sound, but it changed as Aveline entered behind him. The bedclothes rustled as Donnic sat up, blinking blearily, responsive to his wife's approach, but coming to rather more awareness at the sight of the two of them there, his uninhibited grin held not a little anticipation. 

"You're back." Donnic's voice voice scratchy with sleep, and very warm. "Tired?" 

She rubbed her face, scrubbed roughly at her eyes, and came to the bed. She extinguished the lamp and sat heavily, a sigh going out of her with tired relief, rather belied by the restive strain around her eyes. Fenris had seen this enough times to recognize it, when she'd pushed beyond sleep to tossing and turning for most of the hours after her watch. 

"Gone past that." The words were tired, and yet held a note of expectation Fenris did not recognize. 

Donnic's arm reached with years of familiarity that Fenris could certainly not match, stole around Aveline's middle to find the bare skin of her stomach, fingertips brushing upward nearly between her breasts, then lower, and now it was clear what Aveline was asking of him. She inhaled and hummed an appreciative sound. Fenris looked on intently as he caressed her, stroking her lower belly, just above her dark red curls. Aveline's telling shift under Donnic's hand on her belly transfixed Fenris's gaze, the instinct and appetite in the motion. "Alright, love?" Donnic asked. 

She looked up then, not at Donnic, whose arm she covered with her hand, holding him in place, but at Fenris. 

Her unspoken request pulled him forward, and his feet brought him closer before he thought twice, the restrained arousal from the bathing room leaning heavily against his self-control. He'd let go with Donnic, because he could. And here he held fast, because he could do that as well. "What would you… like?" he asked, and saw that even in the dark he could make out the flush on her face. Her silently parted lips and extended hand drew him right to her side. 

The pause lingered, Aveline's fingers curling tighter into Fenris', but she said nothing. Fenris remembered how long he'd sat poised beside a sleeping Donnic, and thought he understood. Wondered if he himself could've answered his own question aloud. 

"Mm," Donnic's low voice was fond understanding, eager and sleepy at once. "You'll see. I could tell you..." he added as he tugged at her waist. She lay back with a sigh of relief, an arm flung up over her face, the other hand still tangled in Fenris'. "But she'll show you." 

Fenris was _entirely_ ready to watch whatever came next. 

Donnic pushed up onto his elbow, met Fenris' eyes briefly as he leaned down to kiss Aveline and stroke over her stomach properly, now that she was stretched out. His fingers trailed gradually lower, she drew a deep breath under his touch, and Fenris mind's eye helpfully recalled all the sensations from their interaction earlier in the bathing room. 

"You've not watched her peak," Donnic's murmur was low and made the heat in Fenris pulse stronger. "It's a sight." 

Aveline shifted at his words, the arm over her eyes moving to splay one hand on her belly, her fingers catching at Donnic's while they trailed up and down. 

Fenris sat, poised to see this unfold. He moved only to adjust himself for comfort, then just watched Donnic brush away the edges of the shirt Aveline wore, exposing the breadth of her to the air, scarred, freckled skin, muscled stomach and points of her hips, dark thick curls at the juncture of her thighs. Donnic's fingers drifted through those curls, brief little strokes. Fenris swallowed. Aveline's thighs shifted--only slightly; they angled outward in in invitation, the merest of motions. 

Fenris didn't recognize the sound he made as his own for a moment, until Aveline opened her eyes, half lidded, to meet his, the welcome in her sleepy gaze warm as her arms had felt earlier. She turned his hand in hers, drew it to her face to press her cheek and then her mouth to his palm. He had to lean forward, nearer, to let her do it, and he glanced back at Donnic as he did, saw that he was smiling wide and content, his fingers caressing the inside of Aveline's thigh. 

That caught his gaze until she spoke. "Here." The word was a warm brush of breath on his palm, and drew his attention immediately. She'd closed her eyes when his own returned to her face, cheeks vibrantly flushed while she brought his hand lower, and smoothed it to rest on the slope over her breast, thin soft cloth separating his palm from her skin. A mild nudge downward... 

Fenris smoothed down over her breast with care. Arousal surged and lurched behind his slow movements but he ignored it. Despite the healing he knew her injury remained, and all this was to ease her to sleep. 

Overheard snatches of variously aggravated or smug conversation with Isabela made Fenris relatively certain Aveline's preferences also extended to more active participation. But her exhaustion tonight called for care. And this was so much better than cleaning and stitching a wound. 

If she wasn't one for talking much now... in that they were of a kind. 

Through the cloth her nipple was already firm against his palm. She lifted her hand off his, found the hem of the shirt instead, and pulled it aside. The cloth slid from under his hand, uncovering her to his touch, and he pressed his palm against her in an instinctive kneading caress. She arched up with a closed-mouth sound, and he bent where he knelt beside her to taste her skin, delicate and warm over her collarbone. 

"Yes," she said, voice relieved, and only just audible. Her arm encircled his shoulders, and he lay down. 

*** 

Aveline didn't look, eyes closed, but felt no need to. Fenris' mouth was moving, now open against her neck, breath hot on her skin. Donnic's hand rested heavy on her thigh, having stilled there when Fenris settled against her. In vast contrast to Donnic's loose-limbed ease, Fenris lay tense and lean and ready. The proximity made it easy to feel the eager swell of her sex in immediate response, her pulse a throb in the flush of her face and her labia; the desire to just part her thighs, tighten her arms and pull him into her was too dampened by her fatigue to pursue. It was enough to feel the comforting potential for all of that. 

She wanted, but they--they two--would see to it all. 

Fenris' lean knee slid against her thigh and the ridge of his arousal was against her hip, all through the barrier of his leggings. That was unneeded, she thought, so found the hem with her hand, tucked her thumb and tugged. 

He took a little breath, quick and surprised, then moved with an unpracticed writhe; the leggings were gone and the hard heat of his cock was bare, nudging slippery against her hip, the feel of it making her shift contentedly in response. He was as near as ignoring it though, just palming once again at her nipple. She arched up and the motion encouraged him. He turned his hand, cupped the swell, stroked the nipple with his thumb as it tightened and she rubbed a grateful hand down his back, and that, he _reacted_ to, rocked against her, a deep breath expanding his back under her palm, exhaling with a shudder. She opened her eyes, catching silver light fading. Her palm tingled strangely from exposure to his activated tattoos. 

"Mouth will do wonders." Donnic's murmur drew a rush of thick heat down between her legs towards where her husband's fingers rested, and made Fenris lift his head, eyes wide. Donnic's little huff of fond joy signalled him beginning again to quietly stoke her heat, rubbing his hand along her inner thighs and only grazing her sex, a familiar and practiced motion. When she looked past Fenris' shoulder, Donnic was regarding both of them with the same heated awe she knew from the comparatively rare times he'd coaxed her to touch herself while he looked on. 

Fenris had stopped moving, staring back at Donnic, as if what was happening had caught up with him, as it seemed to have just done for them all. 

"He's right," she said, barely above a whisper because it never had quite become easy to speak of anything like this--even now it felt more difficult to say that than it had before to simply move Fenris' hand to touch her. 

"Ah--gladly," Fenris answered, voice rough. With a slow blink, he moved downward enough so he could dip his head down and draw one nipple into his mouth. Light touch and then his lips closed and a sound escaped him, eager and heated, and Aveline let her eyes close at the pleasure of it, wet pressure, suction, slide of his tongue all for her to arch against. She draped one arm over his neck, the other hand searching to the side until Donnic tangled his fingers in hers. The effects of Fenris' mouth spread under her skin, rippling out, pooling in all the places where his body lay against hers. 

Donnic was murmuring quiet advice from his years of practice. "...and just mind your teeth," he was telling Fenris softly, "then push when she pushes back." 

She'd never heard him explicitly speak of his knowledge of her body to someone else, and it felt like the blush would consume her skin, tingling all down the front of her. And Fenris took the words to heart as the wet tug of his mouth altered for the better. 

Then he pulled off, leaving her nipple hard and sensitized in the suddenly cooler air. 

Aveline half-opened her eyes to see the top of his head as he moved to the other side, nosing at her chest between her breasts first, warm hand taking the place of his mouth. She covered that one with her own, pressing him harder against her. 

Down past his shoulder she could see Donnic's hand, watched him set his fingertips near one line of lyrium that curved below Fenris' shoulder blade to meet the one that followed his spine. It gleamed faintly as if from the mere proximity, and Fenris' breath hitched as an undulation ran through him, the hot and cold of exhale and inhale fast against her damp skin. 

*** 

The softness of one of Aveline's breasts warmed his hand, his cheek rubbed against the other, as Donnic's fingers traced a path that bordered on too much without tipping over, only heightening everything else, edges of all of him felt bright and hungry. He continued the path his mouth had intended to take, and covered her nipple. 

Soft at first like the other, faintly salty with sweat that washed away under his tongue to the bare taste of her skin. It tightened under his tongue as he sucked, and her hand on the back of his neck clung as she pushed up against his mouth, and with his eyes closed all he could feel, hear, smell was the slide of their skin against each other and the rising scent of her arousal, soft noises of the bedding and breathing--the faint lilt of voice in Aveline's sighs traveled through him right down to his cock. 

Fenris felt, lying alongside her, her knee bending, legs parting further. Donnic made an approving sound. Fenris let go of her breast with his hand, trailed it down just to the edge of her ribs, lower… hesitated. 

"Mmhm… here," Aveline's arm slid alongside his own, her fingers pressing down with purpose much surer than her voice as they ran along his forearm. He moved his hand at her guidance, stroking over the muscles of her stomach, before following the radiant heat to where damp became wet, and curls parted over lush, warm folds. 

He heard Aveline's breath catch when his fingers dipped between, and then her warm hand covered his, urging his lower, fingers over his as her thighs spread, pressing him _in_. Two fingers, an easy slick slide. Aveline's palm stayed over his hand, guiding pressure and rhythm. Her chest rose and fell with a long sigh that trailed into a ragged sound of pleasure that utterly captivated him. 

He was in her, fingers sunk deep by her invitation, welcomed there and giving her pleasure. Her arm around his shoulders had tightened, not confining him but holding on for her own sake as she arched under his weight and guided his fingers to move with a deep sweeping stroke, slowly back out and hard in again. 

"Donnic," she asked, voice tight and strained and Fenris thought she must be close. "Please," and her hand on Fenris' was replaced by Donnic's wider palm, her fingers instead sliding underneath to touch herself with the finesse that Fenris hadn't yet learned, and Donnic helped him maintain the rhythm she had begun, one her husband knew very well. 

"Oh… in, _in_ , more--oh," Aveline's grip on his shoulder was suddenly bruising, and as her hips moved against their combined touch. 

Fenris found her breast again, released before as his focus had travelled lower along with his hand. He closed his mouth over it, swept his tongue over the soft, soft skin of the areola before tightening to suck. It was exquisite, this, he hadn't known, couldn't have guessed how she'd feel against him. Distantly he heard Donnic's thick, inaudible murmur, felt the man halt their combined motion to guide him to just press in, hard, " _Fenris_ ," Aveline breathed, faint and high, then all of her tightened at once, even her breath held while he felt the rhythm of her climax around his fingers, the flutter of muscles inside her and jerking of her hips.

He kept still then, poised, achingly hard but holding fast as he took in the sound and the feel of her; his fingers still awaited Donnic's lead. He'd kept Fenris firmly in at the first grand shudders, now let his fingers slip a little out, stroking but gently, slower, gliding between just the entrance of slick, soft-swollen labia as her body eased back to loose, relaxed calm.

He might have withdrawn, but Donnic's hand did not lift away, so Fenris' remained too, resting warmly over her wet heat a little longer, until she sighed, the fingers she'd used to pleasure herself nudging them both away. 

He left his hand, fingers wet, resting on her side. Her hand came to rub over his arm, her lips pressed to his forehead in a soft kiss, and Donnic's arm lifted away, the bed shifting and dipping as he moved. 

Fenris felt Donnic lean close and warm over his back, heard the two of them kiss, and then Donnic's hand smoothed down Fenris' spine again. Light, slow, but not light or slow enough, for his skin and his lyrium both sang and a half a groan escaped him, a gust of noise and breath, and he pushed up and nearly off Aveline before he lost his mind to rut like he had with Donnic before, but her arm across his shoulders tightened. "You can," she said.

"I--I'll--" Fenris dropped his forehead to her neck again, and her hand on his shoulder squeezed. 

"Yes," she encouraged, and that nearly did it. 

"Yes," Donnic's low voice rumbled through the rush in his ears. "Then she'll see too." 

Aveline's thigh moved against his, she was so warm. 

He hitched his knee between hers, her wetness hot and sliding against his thigh. As much as his body sought that heat--no, that was too--he couldn't--she did not insist, only raised her thigh between his, and when Donnic rubbed up his back again he was lost. She held him as he clung to her and he bucked against her hip with mindless abandon, face buried in her neck, breathing her in--soap, warmth, soft, scarred skin over such strength--

*****

Donnic watched Fenris end his driving motion with the same shivering pause he'd seen hours before. Aveline held him to her, then eased his slump off to the side without really letting go. Again Donnic saw that wave of tension and release in him, the uncertain glimmering flare of his tattoos that ebbed as Fenris gave a sated sigh and curled towards Aveline just as Donnic liked to do.

Aveline's eyelids were drooping as Donnic rose and left the room. Even the treasured novelty of Fenris here could not hold back the exhaustion now, and Donnic saw her abandon any further effort to stay awake even as he used what had to be a startlingly cool wet cloth to remove some of the mess. 

Fenris raised his head as Donnic began to do the same for him, frowning sleepily. "How is it that getting you _both_ to rest is so difficult," he muttered, accepting Donnic cleansing him after a moment of perplexed hesitation. Donnic laughed once, deep and low in the dark. There was a strange elation in having that absolutely familiar grumble at a time like this. "Both at once is the true feat," he told Fenris while he slid back under the covers. "You'll grant, I had reason to wake," he added with a yawn, reaching down to adjust his erection. It was slowly easing off.

He could've taken himself in hand--he'd certainly done that before, after taking Aveline's edge off so she could rest. Tonight that didn't appeal; he was still sore everywhere, quite satisfied with all he'd had the pleasure of watching, and the warm bed beckoned.

Fenris watched his movement, said nothing but seemed tiredly mollified, and even amused, when Donnic's attempt to smile reassuringly was interrupted by a second, more jaw-cracking yawn. 

"We're likely to sleep halfway to midday, now," he murmured. Fenris ought to be forewarned of that. Put the pair of them in bed together, and aside from rousing partway at the usual hour to realize there was no shift pending, they slept on until their bodies had rested their fill. 

"...I have no prior engagements." The hesitation before the answer was belied by the certainty of his tone. Donnic thought vaguely that none of them had bothered to speak of anything more specific than wanting this to begin. 

Still, this did seem a fine place to begin from.

***

Fenris woke, not long after dawn, to the especially novel situation of two people asleep beside him who made him feel--at an hour far too early for such a novelty--really unnervingly…. serene.

His bed at the mansion was never this warm.

Donnic had settled, curling towards his wife, just the same as he had been towards Fenris some hours prior. Fenris lay still but alert, taking in all he could sense around him.

Shared space while camping on a trip outside the city was not at all like this. 

Their room smelled so different to his own, too, the bowls of dried herbs and flowers that were scattered around the house lending a faint floral scent. The room, their bed also smelled like them, their warmth making them part of the very atmosphere. And likewise the movement of the air was distinct. The space was smaller, closer, sounds of just their breathing seemed louder, held in by the snug walls.

And, then, all too quickly, he felt overwarm and stifled. Three warm bodies and too many bedcovers? He'd hadn't ever considered any practicalities like that. Hadn't ever considered afterwards. And then he realized--and perhaps this would continue to happen, for quite some time--that he could simply... get up, and come back. In minutes, or an hour, whenever he chose.

He slid from the bed, relieved at the cool air washing over him, and pulled his leggings back on with a little bit of regret, willing to acknowledge they'd probably both prefer him to remain, but reassured in his choice. 

He padded out to the living area. The cards from the previous night where still mostly strewn across the table. He gathered them back into one deck, then prowled the little house, looking at places he had never taken time to closely observe before. Some things were still long familiar; room shapes, doors, windows, how to enter, how to leave, his reflexive awareness of how to plan an ambush in the available space, kill an intruder--those things he knew. He could have drawn the layout of the house after his first time there.

Now he stood and looked dubiously at the rather wilted-looking potted plants in the kitchen. After some consideration he located a cup and watered them. He peered into the pantry, which, unlike his own food storage, was absent of the fleeing scurry of startled rodent feet or any smug feline hunters. In the hall he opened one door to a closet with bedding and a basket of wadded-up items to be washed. Another led to the privy, then the last to a room that seemed unused except for storage. Extra chairs, some dusty lengths of fabric, a desk with a broken drawer pulled out and left on top, and other disused furnishings.

There was the bathing room, with the tall, narrow tub. The tiled floor prompted unwanted shivers across him but he concentrated on the lingering lavender soap smell and the way Aveline's fingers had felt in his hair, on the sight of her last night and how she'd so easily embraced him. Still, he didn't stay long. With one of them, it'd be more than tolerable, but alone here he didn't feel at ease. Just the tile under his feet made him want to leave.

The floors, aside the bathing room, were more comforting; quietly creaky hardwood under steps he did not try to silence, with worn rugs that absorbed some of the sound. There were some paintings on the walls too, pretty enough, watercolour landscapes that were pleasing to look at, though he narrowed his eyes at the snow-covered forest.

He returned to the living room, to the bookshelf, studied the spines arranged there. Some of the script was too stylized for him to make out, but of those he could he discovered bound copies of the multi-volume Annotated Kirkwall Legal Code, two volumes on cookery, a slew of the softcover serial anthologies where Varric's work was published, along with a few complete novels. 

Lower down, half a shelf was occupied by smaller books of children's stories, rhymes and songs, which gave him pause. He pulled one out, _Destrier the Daring_ , opened it to see an excessively friendly looking mabari on the foreleaf illustration, proudly standing beside a human child holding a rough wooden shield.

Footfalls behind him, and he turned. Aveline was there, sleepy but much less drawn and more alert than he would have expected, looking reassured to see him. At his frown she touched her side and said "Bram gave me elfroot on the way out." Fenris had suspected as much, and her wound was hardly serious but--still. Aveline glanced at the book he held, gaze turning fond and thoughtful.

Fenris paged through to see more illustrations of the great lolloping caricature of a mabari, romping with the child. "From Hawke," Aveline said with a smile. Of course it was.

"It's quite a collection," Fenris observed. Donnic had told him, some time back, that they'd spoken of children. "Will there be a brood to read this to, someday?" he smiled slightly at an illustration of the child brandishing a sword and turned it for Aveline to see. "I picture a red headed army, each strong enough to lift a cow."

"A brood, is it," Aveline answered with a laugh. "Do you suppose Donnic will volunteer to carry them all?" 

Fenris snorted. She reached for the book, turned it in her hands, gaze fixed on the embossed lettering of the title, and Fenris saw the corners of her mouth turn down for a moment, her jaw tighten, and then she sighed. "You know… we thought it would just... happen, but it hasn't." She shook her head. "Midwife said I'm fit. Even Anders said the same. So he thinks it's him. I don't know," She glanced back towards the bedroom. "He apologizes, sometimes--it's--" she grimaced and didn't complete the thought, and Fenris stood silent, lacking any reference for how to respond to so specific a kind of quiet melancholy as this. When Aveline looked back at him, he hadn't any notion of his own expression, but whatever was there made her smile, if a little sadly.

Then she frowned and her eyes turned very searching. "But we have discussed, and one day, we will," she said. "Redheaded or not," she added softly. "There are children in need of families."

An intent curiosity came over Fenris, to meet whoever was added to this family, however it happened, and to watch childhood unfold. His own was lost to him and he'd not had occasion to observe much of anyone else's. He knew next to nothing of babies, but it was terribly easy to picture Donnic doting over one, or with a bright-eyed infant peering over his shoulder from a sling. Easier still to picture Aveline playing at swords or poring over books with an older child.

"It will suit this home," he said.

Aveline's slight smile returned, and some tension he hadn't noticed left her. "That's our hope," she said. Then, cautiously, "But how will it suit _you_?" 

Fenris frowned a moment. Did she imagine the idea should deter him from what they'd started here? As Donnic had reminded him, they'd not expected Fenris' living arrangements to suddenly alter. Likewise, he'd long known they'd considered this. It had been no deterrent.

"…Strangely, I expect," he replied thoughtfully, Aveline visibly reassured as he shrugged. He looked at the bookshelf again, and attempted to imagine coming here to be met not just by Aveline or Donnic but by some small, loud, messy being who called them its parents. "But the thought is… not unwelcome. However it happens," he added. Redheaded little warriors or no, children would be loved. He'd defend that to his own end.

Fenris pulled another book from the shelf. _Rhymes for All Seasons_. A stencilled tree on the cover, with foliage one half and bare branches and snowfall on the other. 

He felt Aveline's stare still on him, and looked back up. " _However_ it happens?" she repeated, soft and particularly emphatic, and as her meaning caught up with him, his mouth opened and remained so.

"Ah--I--" He looked at her, his own expression felt unfamiliar on his features again. 

Faint, incomplete extrapolations of her meaning unfurled out ahead, like the pages of one of these volumes come loose and blown scattered onto the path before them. Fenris barely knew how to turn them into a complete idea. 

He tried to grasp first at his own desire in the disarray, tried to recognize the unfamiliar that suddenly was there, the shape of which hadn't even crossed his mind's eye until now. It was easy to find, but bewildering to contemplate.

Never had he considered the idea of his own offspring, beyond it being something to prevent from occuring by happenstance. But if they--and she--the idea stole his breath, made his hands tighten on the sturdy binding of the book he held. Then he found enough to speak. "Yes," he told her. He'd make a poor parent, he was sure of that. But… the two of them? _Yes_. 

Aveline made a restrained nod of acknowledgement, and he reined in his own reaction. Who knew what, if anything, would ever happen. But now at least they all stood together on the matter.

Fenris' voice felt exceptionally rough, and he wasn't sure he was capable of addressing this subject much longer at this wee hour of the morning. "Understand," he managed to add, "that though I shall make every effort, I make no claims to suitability as a child-minder." 

Aveline's relief and amusement made her tired face relaxed and very beautiful, he thought vaguely. 

"Duly noted," she said. And when he failed to respond any further, she added, with a single false start and a blush across her cheeks, "Come to bed?"

He did.

***

Cooled by his foray, Fenris was glad to appreciate Aveline's body heat again, and lay listening to Donnic's shifting and settling as they rejoined him.

He wasn't sleepy himself, not any longer, but basking here in the bed was pleasant.

He'd spent hours, even some days, lying down and not sleeping in his own bed or blankets at the mansion, but not for the pleasure of it. It happened that things grew too heavy or overwhelming to move, his mind turning something grimly over and over and the rest of him unwilling to rise and get to anything that might distract him from his own despondency. 

At the beginning, in that empty, miserable mansion, it had been him, alone, and those bad days had been often, punctuating the periods where he was tirelessly driven by fixated anger. 

And then he'd met Hawke. The others. Hawke kept dragging him out and about. People began to give him things, persisted in visiting him, would not let him forget there were goings-on beyond the faded walls and his own dogged vengeance. The room he had merely occupied had become a place to live, and not for him alone. And after a time those rarer bad days had included some small feline or two padding over to curl or stretch out alongside him. 

The creatures didn't _only_ earn their keep by hunting the things that wanted to eat his food, no matter how often he now fended off Donnic's teasing on the matter. The presence of other living things… helped.

Now, startlingly, he missed the warm, aloof weight of them.

Not because he needed the comfort, not now. He sat up slowly and looked down at Aveline and Donnic, looking _extremely_ comfortable and rather less than dignified in their rest. The sight of them made the corners of his mouth curve involuntarily. No, he didn't need a small friendly creature to soothe any turmoil or dark thoughts just at the moment. He just… missed them because they weren't here. It was notably different to wanting his own surroundings when he was stuck sleeping on a bedroll outside the city. Now, this lack wasn't bothersome, it was just that he could feel already that it would be pleasant to get back to the mansion and find them there. 

And he _could_ go, too. He wouldn't yet, not now, he didn't want to yet. But if he had to… he could shake one of them awake and say as much, and go. 

Because he could return, and find them here.

 

*

Aveline woke in an unfamiliar spot in her familiar bed. With less available sprawl than she was accustomed to, because Donnic was curled towards her on one side and Fenris was there on the other, sitting up but near enough for his hip to be pressed to hers. She blinked awake, tried to keep still enough that he didn't notice, but the stiffness from overlong sleep made her start to stretch before she could stop the motion, and as he looked down at her in the morning light, all the colours that made him up were picked out bright and clear. Brown and silver and white and green and the in-between shades in the angles and lines of his face. 

She was used to seeing Donnic this clearly, if not nearly as often as either of them would like, but not Fenris. 

A thoughtful, curious frown touched his brow for a moment. She smiled at him. "I can see you thinking," she said. 

He smiled back, face free of strain or tension, and _that_ sight would linger. Forever, if she could help it. 

Beside her, Donnic stirred with a noisy groan and a stretch that arched him fair off the bed. He settled back with whump and a wordless sound of contentment, rolled against her enough to press his erection affectionately against her hip, which she nudged back against. He rocked once before rolling out of bed and making for the privy. 

He stopped by where Fenris sat, an open hand brushing at Fenris' jaw, where he would've cupped Aveline's and pulled her towards him. Fenris raised his head to accept the touch and return a soft, brief kiss. Donnic touched him with such care; Aveline remembered similar for herself, at the start. Not that he never did so now, but she'd encouraged firmer contact, and he'd long since obliged. Neither of them knew exactly what Fenris preferred, yet. But as Aveline watched Fenris stare after Donnic, she quietly thought his needs might fit very will with Donnic's persistent instinct towards gentleness. 

But if she was wrong, well she knew that Donnic could be firm, or rough, as well. They'd find out, in time. Certainly Fenris' attentiveness and burst of intensity last night had suited her, even exhausted as she'd been. Learning what he would like, she was very much looking forward to.

"He's not awake yet, not really," she told Fenris, raising one arm to brush her hand against his leg. He leaned into the contact. "He'll be back."

Fenris looked slowly around at her and nodded. His mouth opened a little, closed, his tongue coming out to wet his lips in a way that made the warmth of the covers seem rather too much, all of a sudden. "Good," he rumbled. 

She was filling with anticipation and eager nervousness all at once, the last grip of sleep shaken off, and her body rested enough to be very, very ready for--whatever may happen. She sat up, stretched properly. She'd done up the buttons on her shirt when she'd returned to bed, and now the cloth of her shirt rubbed tight against her nipples as her arms rose above her head, a tiny murmur of pleasure. She tossed her loosened braid back over her shoulder and reached towards Fenris. He came to meet her, one hand finding hers, the other curving over her blanket-covered thigh as she slid her fingers into his hair. She felt some tangles catch and give way as she pulled him to her, briefly had a hope that he'd allow her to wash it for him again, but his mouth on hers and his hand heavily grasping at her thigh quickly occupied her attention. 

The faint sour taste of morning's breath didn't deter her--or him, apparently--and it faded from her awareness easily in favour of heat and wet exploratory hunger, all of it making her body, now so much better rested, begin to rouse and hunger for rather more than they'd accomplished last night.

She felt his fingers come to the buttons on her shirt, pause only a moment, but before she needed to prompt him to continue, he opened the first, and then each on the way down, methodically, carefully, the cling of the shirt loosening a little more as each one slipped free. His thumbs tucked under, slid up to her collar and pushed it back over her shoulders. There was a thrilling, irrational echo of _first_ with that, no matter that he'd had his mouth on her breasts and his fingers inside her already, there it was, that bubble of shaky elation and and love. _New_. 

It had been that way the first elated, fiery-blushing time with Wesley where he'd fumbled with shirt laces and she'd yanked at his trousers and they'd fallen onto her rickety army cot in attempted silence. It had been that way with Donnic the first night together when he'd been snug against her back and slid her shirt slowly and steadily off, uncovering her to his eyes and her own. Now Fenris lifted the shirt away, kept lightly pulling as she freed her arms and then it fell to the side of the bed, and his kiss deepened as his hands came to spread against her sides, one firm and one light over the healing new scar. 

That hand slid between, palmed her breast, the motion already closer to familiar. She hmmed, tilted them both in invitation, and Fenris pulled back enough to shift across her thighs to the middle of the bed, and pull her down beside and over him.

He sighed a little, staring at her, reached his hands up to slide loose hair behind her ears, warm fingertips stroking the curves. She leaned down to kiss him again, 

She was aware of the creak of the floor, presence in the doorway, and drew back from Fenris to see look around and see Donnic staring at them, and transfixed.

"Maker," Donnic managed, uncharacteristically struggling for words. 

"Good morning," Fenris said from beneath her, voice very nearly casual, though as Donnic moved round the bed to land on Fenris' other side, Aveline could see some of Donnic's amazement reflected in him as well. 

Her heart felt fit to burst with the sudden swell of joy, and her body was most eager to accompany that with other endeavours. She leaned down to Fenris' cheek, kissed slowly beneath his jaw, careful of the lyrium and letting her lips feel his pulse, fast and strong, as one hand went from her ear to the back of her neck, and she felt for his hip, safely clothed for now. 

"Sight better than the last time," she heard Donnic murmur, felt the bed shift as he settled, felt Fenris' sound of agreement. Aveline drew back, stared at Fenris' bare chest, the silvery lines that she found guiltily beautiful. Fenris had made them his own, used them for his own purposes. They were his now, but even so. 

"You can," Fenris said, and she met steady green eyes. Trust.

"They're... sensitive," Donnic added, visibly pleased to share the information. Fenris' mouth widened in a little smile of confirmation. 

"Oh," she said, intrigued. 

She ran her hand down his chest, rubbing firm and resisting the way her fingertips wanted to trace the lines directly. She touched one nipple; it firmed and Fenris let out a pleased noise. Perhaps not so eager for contact as hers, but certainly more responsive than Donnic's.

"Well now. Whatever shall we do...?" Donnic said, voice distracted as he watched them. Aveline didn't stop her idle touching, or looking--watching the swell under Fenris' leggings, watching Donnic rubbing the heel of his hand almost idly over his own erection, his smalls' soft cloth clinging and leaving less to the imagination than even Fenris' leggings. Not that Aveline had to imagine.

Fenris glanced at him, then seemed caught by his casually moving hand. Perhaps he liked to watch, too. Donnic could make a proper show of it, when so inclined. But Fenris frowned. He reached up to pluck at the shirt Donnic still wore. 

"Take this off," Fenris said in reply to Donnic's question.

Donnic made a scoffing sound. Aveline tsked. Donnic could never be called shy, most times, and this wasn't quite shyness, but… 

After another moment of them both waiting, Donnic gave a mildly self-conscious eyeroll, sat up, and pulled the shirt over his head, revealing his furred chest, more even than his forearms, and put it aside with a smile and a sigh of resigned acquiescence. Bruising and raw scrapes patched his midsection, where the Bludgeons had left their marks. It would have all been worse, but he'd surely been dosed with some measure of elfroot, and regardless, they did not diminish Aveline's appreciation.

She hmmed approvingly as the shirt came all the way off. Donnic grimaced affectionately. "I'm no vision, love," he said to her, as he often did, amusement in his voice as he leaned to run a hand over her hair. "No matter what you pretend."

His body was not so toned as Fenris' nor Aveline's, the sturdy muscle from drills and patrols was softened at the edges from a love of food and beer, his skin less marked with scars than either of theirs.

He was, in her opinion, _perfect_. 

"And here I'm in rare company," Donnic continued, his eyes taking both of them in with that remark. 

"You great fool," Fenris muttered vehemently, echoing Aveline's years-old opinion of that unshakeable bit of self-deprecation. Fenris reached up for Donnic, both arms out, and down Donnic went into a tight, simple embrace, his broad back fairly eclipsing Fenris against the bed. Aveline reached to cup the back of Donnic's neck, rub down over his broad, warm back. Her eyes traced the edges of his body, her mind slid to where that sight led, of Fenris spread out under him, open to his fingers or his cock. Her mind's eye could easily supply Donnic's avid, heated gaze, but not-- yet--quite how Fenris might appear. 

She'd held him bucking against her hip, panting against her neck. She very much wanted to _see_ him come--and not sightlessly wild-eyed, beyond thought with the vile Tevinter draught. 

"There; that's done. What next?" Donnic said against Fenris' skin, half thoughtful and half joking, for it seemed quite clear where the general mood would lead them. Fenris released him partway. And Aveline saw the idea in Fenris' eyes, a desire, something specific, and saw his mouth open, then close.

It wasn't shame there, nor apprehension. Not a shred of reluctance. And yet. 

"You could show him… and me," she suggested. That was always best of all. Learning--knowing. There'd be the odd hurdle to reach that, to be sure, but always better for the attempt.

She settled in, watched as Fenris pulled Donnic close again, surely seeking--as she'd done on more than one occasion--to bolster the ease of communication with desire. Unspoken was well and good--well, perhaps not for Donnic--but uncommunicated never was. Fenris rolled his hips so that Donnic rumbled hungrily, and she watched them move slowly together, waited to see what Fenris would let them know.

Donnic had his mouth just where hers had been on his neck, which made her smile. Fenris tilted his head back, eyes half-lidded, and found her gaze; he pushed Donnic's shoulder enough for him to stop. It took another moment, then he twisted beneath him, so he was belly down. He folded his arms, and after a pause, started to draw a knee beneath him. 

And Aveline didn't care how easily Donnic could say it, she could fully commiserate with the need to convey, without so many words, _fuck me._

She shifted where she sat, squeezed her thighs together.

"Just so?" Donnic said quietly, his hand coming to Fenris' hip, sliding slowly against his backside, which made Fenris push insistently back. "Or?" He tucked his arm below Fenris' chest and rolled them both to the side, so Fenris came suddenly face to face with Aveline instead of hidden against the sheet. 

The flush across his cheeks was noticeable, and the aroused opening of his mouth was equally so.

"Yes," Fenris breathed, and swallowed. 

He groped back and found Donnic's smalls, pushing at them while he looked at her, then he reached for her. She didn't know how much movement all of them so near would allow, but if he wanted them both close, he'd have it. She touched his chest again, her thumbs over his nipples gently, a little more fuel to the fire; this time, Fenris' answering squirming writhe was quite eloquent. Donnic leaned away, fumbled on the nightstand and then Aveline took the jar from him. 

***

Donnic slid a warm, loose hand into Fenris' leggings, and Fenris surged against the touch. He could barely decide how to move, into Donnic's hand or back against the hard cock pressed to his rear. The sensitivity of his lyrium gave the illusion of all his skin so responsive to contact that arousal kepting surging forward over any other desire.

He heard a sound driven from him, cracked and shocked, a staccato whimper of his rabid arousal wrestling with his mind begging him to wait, wait, _wait_ , against the fear it would all vanish.

"We've got you," Donnic murmured. "Easy. Want to feel it for a while, you like this."

 _Yes. I want--I want_ \--he bucked and then forced stillness again. _Wait. Let them_ \--Aveline was there, just there, and she touched his face, the contact startling him into focusing for just a moment, able to see her concern, to see her look past him to Donnic, who then resettled his grip all over, hand releasing him to move upwards and open flat over his belly. 

Donnic's voice was steady over the spikes of arousal, smoothing them. "Mm. Come to think, might want this first one now? Blunt the edge. Shall we?" Donnic spread his fingers wide, warmth and steady, steady pressure. 

"Would it help?" Aveline asked quietly. Fenris rolled his head, then it finally sank in, what they meant. No need to wait. There could be more.

"Yes." _Yes, yes_. He gave an unsteady nod.

Aveline's touch was soft as pulled off his leggings. His hips juddered forward while she drew the cloth covering him off and away, his legs restive and shifting, heels digging in, then a foot hooking back around one of Donnic's knees, as Donnic pressed up behind him, his erection hot, ready, daunting and thrilling at once. Donnic smoothed his fingers lower again, and Fenris panted and jerked, seeking the touch. "There. S'alright." Donnic's hand cupped Fenris between the legs, fingers curling around his balls, moving slowly and Fenris was still caught between forward and back.

"Haah. Ahh. I need--" he swallowed. Something around him. Something in him. His throat produced a frustrated noise.

Donnic was murmuring in a calming tone. "See her there?" 

Aveline had moved more upright, to work at the jar's lid. Fenris caught a faintly flowery scent, and she coated her palms, nudging at Donnic's hand. He withdrew to hold Fenris' hip, trail of sensation resolving in a hot handprint keeping him close.

Fenris gave a guttural moan as she slid her hands onto him. She cupped his balls, caressed upward and closed both hands over his cock, one gliding on the shaft, the other answering the pressure of his thrusts with her slick palm.

Oh it was--it was--his hands found her wrists, and she stopped. He lay breathing harshly, holding on, and on and on, the internal struggle snarling forth; _you can't allow_ \--and Aveline inched nearer, put her forehead to his, then drew back to press her lips there. Yes, he could.

Restraint evaporated. He let go of her wrists and she began to move again slow and firm. Fenris lifted a hand clumsily to her neck, clinging on and just following; fast as he craved--he could have this, there was more, he could--and it all evened out, his rough thrusts seeking but his desperation burned off. As this slight easing of his pace she kept her firm grip and slid one hand low again, squeezing and palming at his balls. 

His legs parted, hips canted. "Hhh--please," he managed on an inhale, and she slid her fingers farther back. Not in, but just her fingertips circling against the tight muscle alone was what he sought; sensation.

"There now," Donnic's voice did as much for him as Aveline's strong hands, he could feel the sound of it through Donnic's chest against his back. "There now," he repeated, "got you, love." Fenris closed his eyes, sank back into all of it. With only a few more strokes, he went shaky between them, and she carefully held him through it. "Mm, beautiful," Donnic murmured against Fenris' skin.

Fenris recovered where he was, Donnic nearly cradling him. Aveline withdrew her hands, wiped them and herself somewhat carelessly on the sheet, as Fenris watched her, half-lidded.

Donnic kissed the side of his head, shifted on the bed. "You still want--?"

"Yesss," Fenris interrupted him with a slow, emphatic answer.

The fill, the feel of that, he wanted. Fingers, he'd had. He'd not ever desired some kind of object to try on himself. And there was nothing else he'd done, unless it had been lost to him. He felt the trembling place in him, the place that craved and feared at once. He'd know, one way or another.

"Just so," Donnic said, and leaned down at mouthed gently at Fenris' ear. Fenris sighed, squirmed, pressed back, and waited. 

***

Aveline heard the breathy groan from Donnic that coiled through every aroused spot on her body. 

"Let me?" she asked. Donnic could, certainly, but she so loved this. Donnic smiled knowingly, and slid a hand under Fenris' thigh, lifting it to open him again to Aveline. Fenris' cock lay soft for now, relaxed like the rest of him, which served quite well for her purpose. He sighed when she put her oiled fingers to his hole. One slid in easily, which was good.

Two went with some resistance, and as it eased, she felt carefully within, gradually pressing so that she could feel for where the soft walls firmed a bit, and-- _there_. Fenris inhaled, moved a little against her. She looked up to see him almost languid against Donnic, eyes close with a faint frown of concentration. She stroked over it a few times; as she did Fenris reached for his cock himself, just holding it. Not hard by any means; if he sought to avoid his body's persistent impatience, he would have time.

"More," he said, after a little while. She obliged. Three fingers made him grunt quietly, wince. He drew in some deep breaths that grew audibly easier as he shakily started to stroke himself, and she kept up her attention to that place inside him.

This was where Donnic usually had enough, though there was a toy they had that he asked for from time to time, and she knew he used on his own. He'd like to take Fenris too, she was sure of that.

"I want--please--" Fenris said, the words clipped but his tone was not. She slid her fingers free of him, took more oil into her hand, and paused Donnic's slow rocking motion with a touch. 

He shifted back, made room enough for his cock to jut forward, straining and ready. Aveline wet her lips, sighed a little, leaned down instead to take a taste of Fenris' skin, kissing his hip as she coated Donnic's cock to dripping.

Fenris arched to accommodate. Donnic kept his steady grip lifting Fenris' leg, and so Aveline had the extraordinary singular delight of guiding him as he pressed slowly forward, watching the oil-sheened breach and stretch.

Fenris made a thin sound, needy and pained and relieved, and his body tensed all over for a moment before he breathed himself back down.

"Slowly," Donnic murmured. "Slow, with me. Oh, it's--" Donnic grunted. "No rush now, see love," he said, adjusting his arm holding Fenris to him, fingers shifting on his thigh to better the angle. "Tight. Bear down for me. Oh, you feel good," he breathed, voice thick.

Aveline could see what Donnic couldn't, how Fenris's eyes were wide, terribly bright. The sound of his breathing sped up, the grimace spread on his face, but not a moment's hesitation. He only pressed back, determinedly, and when the head of Donnic's cock was in, he kept moving even when Donnic stopped. His panting turned, before long, from strain to pleasure. Fenris's gaze focused a moment on Aveline, eyes meeting hers but also travelling down and up her body. One of his hands gripped Donnic's where the arm beneath him curved up around his stomach, but the other went to Aveline's forearm, jolted her from just staring to lying down again. Fenris held onto her, did not let go.

He could do little else, entwined with Donnic, but his hand was a hot point of contact that shaved away more of her own restraint. With the heat of them all in the room, the air was thick and warm, her body was wrapped in all the building arousal, theirs and her own. She touched herself, watching them, hand between her thighs, relief and fuel both, fingertips nestling up against her core, her body ready to open and craving greater motion. But she waited. She could see, and feel through Fenris' fingers around her arm, the smooth motion of Donnic thrusting into him, steady and slow. She curled her own fingers along with it, holding back the urge to press harder and deeper.

Fenris eyes went there and stayed, watching her hand. She prickled everywhere, some blush trying to exert itself through the heat already suffusing her skin. She felt Fenris' fingers press and curve on her arm, gripping at her as he pushed back against Donnic.. 

"Harder," he gritted. Donnic's panting contained a noise of acknowledgement and his arm and hand tensed, and Fenris' body jerked with each thrust. Aveline licked her lips, listening to the uneven sound of Donnic's breaths. Soon. And, indeed...

'O-oh, Maker," Donnic's voice shook. "Ah--I--" he panted against Fenris' shoulder.

Fenris looked away from Aveline then, twisting to press his mouth to Donnic's hair, and then he arched, deliberately, finding Aveline's eyes once more before his expression turned inward, anticipation and sensation in every line of him and she watched him feel Donnic's orgasm, the little whimper, the driving final rush, rapt and as near elated as she'd ever seen him. 

When Donnic relaxed, Fenris stayed right where he was, disregarding his returned erection, and let himself be hugged tight, lay while Donnic held on and recovered. Aveline scraped her fingers gently through the hair on Donnic's arm, soothing as she sometimes did afterwards, and he blindly found her hand, tangling their fingers together.

Donnic lingered perhaps half as long as he might have done normally, then Fenris gave a low hiss, his hand tightening on her arm a moment, and she knew he was pulling out. 

"You well?" Donnic's voice was careful. 

"Yes," Fenris replied almost absently, much of his attention seemingly turned inward. He settled onto his back between them. Donnic studied him, and played his fingers somewhat wonderingly down his front. Fenris pressed up against the contact, the heavy fingers stroking over the lyrium, tracing beside. Donnic palmed lovingly at his cock, nearly ready again; when he leaned in to kiss him, Fenris' response was eager. Aveline sat up, resting her arms across her bent knees, sliding her hand beneath Donnic's to stroke as the two kissed. The slow depth of Donnic's attention was typical of him on mornings like this, the savouring of it with his hand rising to Fenris' jaw, thumb smoothing over his cheek. 

His cock was hot in Aveline's hand, the slight give in her grip lessening with each stroke. He bent one knee, the nooks of his thighs still bearing glistening traces of all the oil, and moved into her grip as his hands held onto Donnic, spread open against his shoulders. He was almost ready for her.

When the edge of hunger became audible in Fenris' exhale, Donnic returned his hand to Fenris' front again. Now he smoothed over skin and lyrium as Fenris pushed back against the touch. "Ah," Donnic murmured with smiling satisfaction as he broke the kiss, and moved over for Aveline.

Panting, Fenris followed Donnic part way, then his attention shifted all at once, and he sat the rest of the way up in a rush, reaching for her, very like how they'd begun things this morning. Donnic's chuckle was one of recognition as Fenris pressed against her neck, breathing in, his warm hand sliding up her side, passing carefully over her healing wound, and the other cupped over her sex, palm settling where she could rock against him, fingers curling in. He made a soft eager noise as he touched her, and she clung to his shoulders, rose on her knees to let him explore.

Then it was not enough, and she huffed and pushed at his shoulders for the room she needed. He let her arrange him, and when she climbed over his lap, his hands immediately went to her hips, tightened for her to pause. Indeed, they hadn't the practice to simply slide together. He kissed her neck and she felt him let go on one side, then his hand was between them, he held himself steady and together they found the smoothest angle. The blunt width of the head of his cock touched and pushed and she sank down, the motion and pressure just delicious. She bit her lip and he breathed raggedly against her skin, rocked up into her gently, head resting there. 

He moved so slowly and gently that it nearly put Donnic on their wedding night to shame. But after all this was not to rush, and she did not hurry him. She could see him savouring it, could see the hitches in his breathing as he slowly climbed the slope of arousal again. She met him in kind, and he was all warm and liquid motion in her arms and inside her, until she was just as lost in it, seeking more, and she leaned forward.

He sank back under the pressure of her body, back alongside Donnic, who watched them, relaxed and sated. He slid a hand onto Fenris' chest, thumb stroking across his collarbone as Fenris spread a hand across her belly.

She rode slowly, drifting between eyes open and shut to both thrill at and hide from the hot weight of both their eyes on her. She took Fenris' hand, pressed it lower, and he set his thumb where she wanted, keeping it where she needed to rub with each movement. Aside from rocking in time with her he did little else, seemingly content as he was.

Then it was she who was rising up beyond control, and she could allow it; Fenris' avid stare fixed on her, waiting. Donnic's murmur was low and familiar and encouraging, so she moved until she had to fold down, Donnic's fingers smoothing in her hair, her hand pinning Fenris' just right so she could grind, and she heard a ragged sound of his pleasure, felt the breath of it against her breast. His cheek slid there and then his warm, wet mouth closed on her nipple. She braced a hand at his head and rode until it all broke over her in a dizzying wash, a hot chill through her limbs, and she hung there, head down, Donnic stroking her back and Fenris still hard inside her, still there for her to move around and find the last shocks of grand pleasure as the orgasm ebbed from her.

Her thoughts recovered, for all her desire to linger in her climax. She let go of Fenris' wrist and he brought his hand to her other breast, softly cupping as his mouth sucked gently. She closed her eyes at the comfortable sensations. When she was able, she moved again, for him.

He grasped at her hips, eyes closing and head tilting back. He leaned into it when Donnic kissed his temple, and Aveline pushed herself up, not nearly upright, but high enough that Donnic could easily slip his hand between them again, smooth over the marks on Fenris' chest.

Fenris heaved a deep sigh, moved with the rhythm of Donnic's hand. Aveline felt him shift beneath her, body braced as he set his heels, and she angled her thighs to allow him as much depth as she could. His thrusts grew just slightly faster, fingers digging in with the return of some of that deep urgency.

And then he came, with just a hitch of his voice, pressing against her and holding her to him, the telling pulse of his cock in her so different to feeling his completion against her belly. 

She kept still until his hands relaxed, even then only moving after his eyes had opened, a peculiarly dazed, yet alert, stare.

She slid off carefully, ignoring the mess for the moment--the sheets were a loss, it would be into the hamper after this--and lay back beside him, turning her face against his hair. 

 

***

All was quiet for a little while. Donnic found nothing he wanted to add to this moment, just took care to bask as best he could before concerns and responsibilities encroached again. Already he felt more than slightly hungry for breakfast. Soon, soon. He kept his eyes on the two in bed with him in the meantime.

Warm and easy beside him, Fenris lifted his hand to brush the back of his fingers against Aveline's shoulder; she took it and held it snug against her chest. Donnic had an arm up over Fenris' head, his fingers playing with the loose hair now mostly escaped from Aveline's braid.

He sighed contentedly. "I shall die happy," he remarked to no one in particular. 

Fenris gave a sputtery chuckle. "Indeed," he said softly. He'd barely moved, still lay there staring upward, bemused contentment all about him.

Aveline smiled, only made the slightest motion towards hiding the brilliance of it against her pillow.

Donnic felt his own smile widen. Ah, he was fit to burst. Then he swung himself up to all fours. He leaned down to plant a heavy, long kiss on Fenris' cheek, then Aveline's, before sliding off the bed. "But before that, I'd rather eat," he admitted. He dragged the very askew sheet up over the two of them so they wouldn't get cold, pulled the minimal clothing he needed from the chest of drawers, and left the room. Fenris went up on an elbow to watch him go. Donnic waved at him to lie down, which, to Donnic's delight, he did.

Filling the kettle and putting it gave him time to make a speedy wash of himself before the whistle called him back to the kitchen. He found the pan he wanted, then investigated the pantry, but came out with less than he'd hoped to find.

He headed back to the bedroom with two mugs of tea in one hand, his own in the other. "We've no onions," he announced. Fenris sat up to accept his mug, Aveline's was left on the nightstand as she only yawned and stretched. Donnic downed his quickly, honeyed heat searing his throat most enjoyably. He went back to the wardrobe and got properly dressed to visit the corner market. 

"Bread," Aveline told him. "Molasses."

"Eggs, may as well," Donnic mused, and looked at Fenris. "Anything?"

Fenris blinked. Donnic waited, leaning easily against the door frame, wondered suddenly if asking him this was overstepping somehow, but though he looked momentarily thrown, he did have a request. "Marmalade. Please."

Donnic nodded. "Back soon," he said, and left. Outside, the air snapped with chill, melted snow had frozen to shining icicles on every roof, and the sky was clear and bright. It was a beautiful sight, and one he'd be happy to escape from, back to the warmth of his home.

***

Fenris listened to the door close, holding the tea before him, the heat rising to brush at his face. The prospect of food was both wise and extremely appealing. Less wise, much messier, but still appealing was remaining right here as he was. He put an hand out to where Donnic had been beside him. Faint heat lingered where the rumpled blanket trapped it. 

Aveline rolled over towards her tea, sat up and Fenris glanced over to see her feeling carefully at her healing scar. She retrieved and blew on her tea, 

"I want to wash up." She took a tentative sip, blew again. "Care to join me?"

Fenris thought of her fingers in his hair. "Yes," he said.

 

***

Fenris looked down at the blanket he held. The piteous mewing continued intermittently, which he chose to take as a good sign. The kitten bundled within, a silver tabby, tiny and thin though old enough for its eyes to have turned from infant blue to amber yellow, had been trapped down a flooded culvert. For a mercy, there'd been no siblings or mother in evidence--Fenris had been dreading he would find a tied sack of drowned animals when he had followed the noise, but only the one kitten had been there, pinned against the grate that stopped debris from entering the sewer.

The creature was dry now, Fenris had cleaned it as best he could as it clawed in terror at him, rinsed the filth away and then patted it dry before the fire as it calmed at last, too worn out to protest any longer, but the bloodied gash down its leg was hot and hard with infection. The twin black toms had crouched nearby, looking on. The big grey had muscled past to do his own wash of the injured kitten, his rough tongue doing the most out of anything Fenris had tried to ease the fear of the little beast. It had gnawed desperately at some slivers of the shredded meat Fenris had offered and taken a little water, but now the cries were weaker, and it would not lift its head.

So here he was.

He pushed through the door into Hawke's library, where Bodahn had sent him to find Anders. There was a mess of paper on the floor, some crumpled or half-written in a messy hand Fenris couldn't hope to decode, some of it savagely crossed out. One wall held the shelves Fenris was quite familiar with, containing many books Hawke had lent him to practice reading. The other wall was half obscured by a disorganized arrangement of boxes and baskets, looking to be extra clinic supplies and the kinds of healing paraphernalia Anders always prepared before they went outside the city.

Anders himself was at a desk, staring unmoving at the sheet before him, eyes narrow and lips moving silently. His hand tightened to a fist before spasming flat on the page, and Fenris nearly balked, but his lyrium did not react and there was no evidence or sensation of magic.

"Mage," Fenris snapped. He hadn't intended to open with hostility, but the moment of tension had done away with good intentions.

Anders' shoulders drew in with familiar annoyance, the feathers on his idiotic coat bunching, and he did not look over.

"Why are _you_ here," came the tired reply. 

A cry from the kitten made Anders jolt upright and rise from his chair. He looked at Fenris, and his eyes dropped to the blanket. He came over without hesitation, and Fenris wordlessly kept still so that Anders could lift the blanket and uncover the kitten.

" _Oh_ ," Anders' voice was pained, all of a sudden full of the kind compassion Fenris knew the man could show, in certain cases. Then he went still, face momentarily a frown, gaze sliding sidelong and vague. With a shake his expression cleared and he reached out. Fenris let him take the kitten with mild trepidation.

He was not worried Anders would harm a cat. Anders had once, apparently, had one himself. Justice, on the other hand, might have no use for such an animal.

Anders carried the blanket and kitten very carefully to the table, sweeping the pages of penned manifesto to the side, ignoring the ones that fluttered to the floor. He murmured low comforting noises as he arranged the blanket. Fenris trailed behind him, watched him turn up the wick on his lamp so the kitten lay in a pool of soft yellow light. Its golden eyes, that Fenris had first seen glinting in the dark of the culvert pipe, were dull and it did not look round when Anders ran a gentle hand over its body. The tiny chest laboured to breathe, and the only reaction was to cry out and flinch when Anders examined the gash.

He went still, hands braced beside the small creature, eyes closed. Fenris leaned back, felt his lyrium prickle now as Anders lifted one hand and a glow gathered, faint and misty compared to what Fenris had seen Anders fling in battle, but this hardly called for fireballs-- 

The kitten's cries ceased and Fenris lurched forward--"What did you--"

"Asleep." Anders gave him a condescending look, Fenris tried and likely failed to fully suppress a glare in response. "It--" Anders lifted the swollen leg to look, " _he_ was dying. He can't even take much healing, but I gave him what I could, and some ease." Indeed, the kitten breathed more easily now, but the weakened little scrap of a thing would not have much in it to spare to knit a wound like that. Magical intervention could only work with what was there. Anders moved to one of the baskets, retrieved bandages, small scissors, salve. 

"Poor thing," Anders sighed, stroking the little ears as he sat back down. "Nasty infection, and so thin. Where did you find him?" He began snipping away some of the fur around the wound.

"Down a culvert in an alley off Crown Street," Fenris said.

"Praise the Maker, you've a heart," Anders muttered, but there was little bite to it, all his concentration now on the task before him. Fenris did not respond, only watched him work. Closely. 

" _Must_ you hover?" Anders hissed halfway through stitching the wound,

"Yes." Fenris moved fractionally back.

But Anders finished with as much care as he'd begun, and at length the kitten, still sound asleep, had its leg wrapped and tidy. Anders sat up, stretched a little, and stared down at his work. He petted the kitten with visible longing, running his fingers through the striped fur on his flank. The he looked at Fenris, expression turning controlled. "I can't keep him."

Fenris hadn't had any intention of leaving the animal with him. "Too busy, are you?" he asked with a mild sneer, glancing around at the mess on the floor.

Anders' face hardened further, and Fenris saw a retort form, and then fade back as he closed his eyes to force a breath. He went to the piled-up supplies, taking a clean blanket from a stack of folded ones. He lined an empty crate, growing visibly calmer as he worked, then bundled up some salve, a tiny bottle of something else, and additional bandages, and returned to the table. He lifted the kitten into it with care, and then handed it to Fenris. "Change the wrapping daily for the week. One drop from the bottle on his tongue will get him sleepy enough to do it easily," Anders said, eyes down on the kitten, forehead creased and mouth set sadly. He reached down and rubbed a light knuckle briefly against a soft cheek. He didn't look up as he added, "he's very weak. He may not--"

"I understand," Fenris interrupted curtly. If that happened, at least it would be in warmth and comfort, and not terrified while drowning in sewage. "...Thank you," he said, and Anders didn't respond, beyond his eyes flicking up with some dull surprise. Fenris felt a pang of reluctant guilt for unwarranted snideness on his part. "Yes, well. I won't need those," Anders muttered, waving vaguely at the blankets and supplies.

Noise from out beyond the hall drew their attention. Destrier's barking and Bodahn's quelling but affectionate response. Isabela's laughter and Aveline's amused voice could be heard as well.

Anders lit up. "Hawke!" The welcome and warmth in Anders' voice was pure love and he darted off.

Fenris followed. From the top of the landing he could make out Hawke's soft smile as Anders rushed down the stairs, the light that now only occasionally animated him in full force.

Starting down the stairs himself, Fenris nodded at the returning group. Aveline smiled at him, and Isabela grinned. Fenris caught her brief glance at Aveline, subtle and approving--at first, when she'd realized, it had been amused and impressed--and unspoken as ever over the past many months. Fenris kept his silence too, appreciative still that Isabela only carried on teasing Aveline with explicit glee over what was common, not private, knowledge. 

Destrier left off showering Bodahn with affection and came near to Fenris with a low _wuff_ , head tilted and sharp eyes on the box. Fenris knelt to show him the kitten. Destrier snuffled delicately at it, then looked up and licked Fenris' face. Fenris rocked back with a grimace, but accepted the approval with a tousle of the mabari's ears before scrubbing at the swipe of drool.

Aveline was peering in as well, and Fenris returned a reflexively flat look to her fond, knowing expression, before softening himself to adjust the blanket again.

Hawke had to look as well, of course, and then after a discussion of the next day's plans--Anders would be dragging them to Darktown for the last spell reagent he'd recently told Hawke he needed--they left.

On the way out, Fenris heard Hawke say, half-laughing, "I love you, but the stuff sounds _revolting_." and the door shut on Anders' third or fourth assurance that he'd be the one to sift through the manure or whatever mess it was that the ingredient congealed from.

It was a clear, warm evening now, sun just out of sight and some stars visible past a scatter of wispy clouds. The walk home was comfortable, but more so was Aveline opening the door to a variety of food smells, meat and seasonings. Fenris breathed deeply and silently in, savouring the air. 

Donnic emerged from the kitchen with his sleeves up, drying his hands on a towel that he then draped over his shoulder. "Both of you!" he said, smile spreading to a grin. "Oh, what's this then?" he asked as Fenris handed him the crate so that he could remove his gear. Donnic peered into the box and visibly melted, reaching inside gently to pet the sleeping animal while Fenris explained where he'd found it. 

"Poor little mite," Donnic murmured, tucking the blanket back around it. "Here, let's find you a place to sleep." He carried the crate inside, no doubt to give its inhabitant a warm spot by the stove. 

Fenris exchanged a rueful look with Aveline as she removed her boots, and then he had to look away, discomfited by his own worry. He wondered what the next hours would bring. For all the care the little beast had gotten, it was still uncertain if it would even survive the night.

Well, that was true of any of them, at times. At least there was a chance.

"You've done all you could," Aveline told him. "Come on," she urged, and he followed her in.  
  
  
**END**

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> (Fenris having his mansion overrun by feline invaders is thanks to some fanart I saw ages ago with him taking care of cats in his home. I can't find it anymore and if anyone knows of it, please let me know.)


End file.
